No more disguise
by kath-lee15
Summary: sequel to A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. She's back and now it's time for healing, but things are never that easy.
1. Chapter 1

-She had been through so much in her life, and even more in the last year. Considering all that, she had thought that doing this would be easy, that it'd be the part where she got what she had missed all this time, but now, standing here, she realised that she had been dead wrong. This was much harder than she had expected.

-She had no idea what she was supposed to do or say once that door opened. She was thrilled to see her daughter again, and if she was truly honest with herself, thrilled to see him again, but it was everything that came with it that terrified her.

-She hadn't seen or spoke to Lucas in six, well seven years now, and she had no idea how that was going to go. She didn't know what she was going to find on the other side of that door and that was frightening.

-Finally, after minutes or hours of inner debate, she wouldn't know, she gathered her courage and knocked on the door. To calm her nerves and stop herself from just taking off running, she started to count in her head. It was a trick that she had developed in the hospital, it prevented her from thinking too far ahead and panic. She got to eighteen before the door flew open and her breath hitched in her throat.

-There he was, the guy that had stolen her heart so many years ago. She almost stopped breathing as his eyes swapped over her until they confusedly settled on her face.

-The both of them uneasily looked at each other for a few seconds but before she could fully assess his appearance or think of anything to say, he muttered her name and then collapse to the floor with a thud.

-"Oh crap!" She thought.

-"Lucas!" She shrieked and ran through the doorway to kneel beside him.

-She released the breath that she didn't know she had been holding when she felt his pulse. Thank God he had a pulse. She had no idea where all this calm and collected exterior of hers came from, but she then lowered her head to his face and released a relieved sigh when she felt his regular breathing on her cheek.

-He had passed out. Great, that was always the effect that she liked to have on people. She assumed that it must have been quite a shock for him to see her, after all, she was supposed to be dead, but still, she hadn't really expected him to faint on her.

-"Maybe I should have left the Social Services to handle it." She thought sadly while running to find a cold cloth to help him wake up.

-When she had finally remembered everything and the police had confirmed that she really was who she said she was, social services had offered to go and get her daughter themselves, but she had refused, she didn't want to do that to Lucas, so they had handed the address and left her to explain everything to him.

-She wasn't sure how she wanted to handle things from here and to her dismay, the authorities weren't helping much. To her demand, they had accepted not to release news of her surviving the crash until she had told her friends and family, and she was very thankful for that. She couldn't think about how it would have felt for Anna to hear about that from the news, it would have been horrible.

-But other than that, the authorities didn't know much more than she did on what the hell she was suppose to do next. Apparently, they weren't that many people who ended in her situation, which she figured was a good thing because being in her situation sucked. She felt like her life had suddenly become some lame soap tv show and she hated it.

-She kneeled back next to Lucas and applied to cold cloth that she had found in the bathroom on his forehead.

-She had chosen to come here and talk to Lucas herself because he had always been great at helping her figure things out, and that was exactly what she needed the most right now. That had been one of the hardest things about leaving and being apart from him, he wasn't there to help her make sense of things anymore.

-She was completely lost in her life now. She didn't have a job, or a place to live, her daughter wasn't even fully hers anymore. Apparently, coming back from the dead wasn't as easy as it was in the movies. It was going to take time for the government to fix everything and in the meantime all she wanted to do is be with Anna again, god she missed her. She wasn't sure who she was missing at first, but she missed her. Somehow in all the fog that was her memory, she still felt that connection to Anna. There had also been another connection that she had felt, but she wasn't sure how she felt about that one right now. There were more important things to figure out first.

-Just as she was thinking about that, he began to stir.

-His eyes slowly opened and he looked around confused until his eyes found her. He blinked multiple times, shaking his head as he did and she wondered what he was doing. After a few seconds, he stopped blinking but his eyes stayed on her. Confusion changed into complete bewilderment and then anger.

-He tried to sit up and she helped him but when he realised that her hands were on him, he jerked back. He then started massaging the back of his head, his eyes never leaving her.

-Finally, after what felt like forever to her, he tried to speak.

-"What ha- happened?"

-Before she could even figure out how to answer that, he was speaking again.

-"Who are you? What kind of sick joke is this?" He spoke angrily pushing himself up to his feet.

-She imitated him hurriedly and the two of them stood face to face.

-"Answer me." He yelled again, still keeping a distance between the two of them.

-She looked at him worryingly, he couldn't have hit his head that hard.

-"Huh, It's me Luke. It's Peyton." She tried quietly.

-He shook his head and she saw angry tears roll down his cheek.

-"Shut up, shut up, she's dead. Who the hell are you?" He yelled pushing off the tears and moving dangerously close to her.

-He gripped her shoulders tightly and part of her started to panic. What the hell was going on. Surprise she had expected, but anger and denial, not so much. She knew that Lucas would never hurt her, but at the time what scared her was that the man with the death grip on her didn't look like the man she remembered. Gone were the eyes full of concern, the gentle way he would touch her. Now, all that she could see when she looked at him was anger and pain, and she had no idea why they were there. She snapped out of her trance to hear him once again yell at her to tell him who she supposedly really was.

-She pushed the fear down and tried another tactic. If words weren't going to cut it, she could always rely on their connection. God she hoped it was still there.

-She raised her hands and pushed his shoulders away from her so that they stood at arms length.

-"Lucas." She started, her voice wavering. "Lucas, look at me, look at me. You know who I am."

-Slowly he looked down into her eyes and the grip on her shoulder lessened as the two of them stood there staring into each other's eyes.

-This is the moment where she realised that something was different in him, he was in pain. She could see it in his eyes, in his soul. Part of her thought that maybe it had something to do with her, but she quickly pushed that thought out of her head. It wasn't possible, Lucas had moved on from her a long time ago. She still made a note in her mind to try and figure out where this pain was coming from. He had helped her so much by taking in Anna, the least she could do was help him too, if she could anyway.

-Gradually, as they stood there, the anger in his eyes rescinded and was replaced by confusion and pain.

-"Pey- Peyton." He finally spoke, tears in his voice.


	2. Chapter 2

-It took all she had in her not to break down crying right at this instant, there was so much pain in the way he had said her name.

-She released her hold on his shoulders and brush her own tears from her face.

-"Yeah." She answered quietly hoping to dear God for him not to pass out on her again, or worst get angry.

-He took a step back and she tried not to let the distance that he kept putting between them get to her, he was probably in shock, she told herself.

-"How? When? You were dead." He asked confusedly, tears once again running down his cheeks.

-"Luke, I'll explain everything to you I swear, but please before all of that, can I see Anna?" She asked tears in her own eyes. She wanted to tell him everything, really she did, but she wanted to see her daughter so badly, she didn't know if she was going to be able to concentrate on anything else until she saw her.

-He looked at her confused for a few seconds before the anger once again took over his beautiful eyes.

-"No." He said taking one more step away from her.

-"What?" She couldn't believe that she had heard him right.

-"No." He spoke once again, his eyes hard.

-"What do you mean NO. You can't. She's my daughter Lucas." She couldn't believe he wouldn't let her just see her.

-"She's mine too. For a year now. So until I know exactly what's going on, you're not going anywhere near her."

-"I'm not kidding Luke, I want to see her." She warned through her tears as she started to make her way down the hallway looking for her daughter.

-"You're not going to find her, she's at school." He said codly following her around his apartment.

-He kept a few feet between them at all time as they toured his apartment. He was so focused on not looking at her that he almost ran straight into her back when she stopped abruptly in Anna's doorway.

-She stood there frozen looking at her daughter's room. It was beautiful. She looked around confused. Other than a few toys, she didn't recognize anything in here. She couldn't believe that she had been gone this long. Suddenly something clicked in her mind. She turned to Lucas abruptly.

-"School?" She asked with tears in her eyes.

-He softened. "Yeah."

-She sniffed. "I can't believe she's already in school."

-At that she saw him softened more. He looked at her with thoughtful eyes before passing by her and walking into the room. He grabbed the phone that laid on the bedside table. She smiled a sad smile when she saw a picture of her on the bedside table. Lucas seemed to follow her eyes because he gave her a apologetic look.

-"Look I have an idea, I'll let you see her, but from a distance, and then we come back here and you tell me everything. That okay?"

-"Luke…" She tried to argue but she could see from the look in his eyes that it was already a lot for him to offer her that, so she nodded.

-"Fine."

-He nodded and dialled a number. She listened as he spoke.

-"Yeah Brooke, it's me. You in town?"

-"Yeah well I was wondering if you could pick up Anna today. I'm busy and I was wondering if you could go pick her up from school in half an hour and spend a few hours with her."

-He paused probably listening to what she had to say.

-"Yeah, that'd be great. Just drop her off some time later tonight. Oh and Brooke call before please."

-"No I'm not on a date Brooke. Now if you could just go before you're late. Tell her I love her. Thanks a lot." He smiled before closing the phone and turning to look at her.

-She was in complete shock. Did she just heard him right? Brooke. Brooke was going to pick up her daughter from school. He had got to be kidding her?

-He seemed to sense her confusion because he explained.

-"Brooke's changed a lot since she met Anna. She's great with her." He said passing by her once again and walking out of the room. She shook her head and followed him into the kitchen.

-"You and Brooke?" She didn't know what had possessed her to ask that, and she looked away when he turned to stare at her.

-He seemed to gaze her before he answered.

-"Are nothing but friends but she hangs with Anna a lot." He volunteered, but once again putting a few feet between them. The distance that he kept putting between them hurting more and more each time he did it

-"Why?" She finally managed to ask. All this new information was hard to handle.

-"Why what?" He asked. If the situation wasn't as tragic, she might have laughed at the ridicule of her and Lucas' conversation.

-"Why does Brooke spend time with Anna?" She reformulated her question.

-"After Pey…, well after you…, well whatever happened to you. When Brooke found out about Anna, she felt guilty or something like that and she decided to make it up by being there for Anna. She's been awesome with her, they get along great."

-Her breath hitched in her throat when she heard him start to talk about her in the third person, obviously it was really hard for him to accept that she wasn't dead or that she had been dead, she didn't know.

-She didn't know how she felt about that, or how she was supposed to feel for that matter so she decided to concentrate on the matter at hand.

-"Make what up?" Her and Brooke hadn't really fought after high school, they had just drifted apart to the point where they had stopped talking completely. She had always felt bad about it and now she wondered if maybe Brooke had too.

-"The way she treated you, how your friendship ended, I don't know, we never really talked about it. Like I said, she's here for Anna. So," he paused, "we should head out if we don't want to miss her." He said awkwardly.

-"Oh! Yeah sure." She nodded and followed him out the door with the same awkwardness.

-If she thought that their conversation in his apartment had been awkward, it was nothing compared to cab ride to Anna's school. They sat beside one another and barely exchanged a word, it was horrible. She had no idea why neither of them could come up with anything to say. Before, they could spend hours talking about nothing and everything, now they were completely awkward in each other's presence. She figured that considering the situation they were in, it wasn't that difficult to explain, but still, it hurt to be this close but to feel so far apart.

-Finally, the cab stopped and she turned her head to look at a very imposing brick building.

-"Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School." She looked at Lucas who shrugged.

-"I wanted her to have the best, beside they have these great art programs. She loves it."

-She looked from him to the school over and over again with an awed expression on her face.

-"How can you afford it? The tuition must be huge." She could tell from the stature of the buildings and the way the buildings were maintained that the place was no public school.

-"Not that much." He shrugged once again. "And it's worth every penny."

-"How much?" She asked dreading his answer. She knew that he wasn't avoiding the subject for nothing.

-"About 30." He wouldn't look at her.

-"Please tell me that's in Pesos or something." She exclaimed. All he did was shrug once again. Obviously that hadn't been a huge concern to him.

-"Thirty thousand dollars Luke. For one year. Are you kidding me?" She couldn't believe he would have spent so much on sending Anna to school. She was both impressed and angry, there was just no way she was going to be able to pay for that next year.

-"She's happy there, it's all that matters. Beside, I'm doing well, I can afford it." He explained. He then closed the conversation when he told the cab driver to wait for them and he got out of the car. Peyton followed him quickly and the both of them sat on a bench that was positioned so that they could see without being seen.

-She could see people going in and then leaving with children with them. When he saw her looking at the kids he spoke again.

-"She hates the uniform. She's complained about it for weeks. But she loves the school so I guess that made up for it."

-She looked sideway at him and smiled. She was about to say something else when something caught her eyes.

-"Brooke." She murmured, her eyes fixed on the figure of her old best friend as she made her way into the school. Her friend looked older, but she still had that happiness that seemed to flow from her being. She had missed her.

-"Yeah. She should get out with Anna soon." Lucas answered quietly looking at her.

-She didn't answer him until Brooke was into the building.

-"How is she doing?"

-"Brooke?" He asked confused.

-"Yeah."

-"Good. Her fashion line really took off and she's getting a lot of attention. She travels a lot, mostly between Tree Hill and New York. She took it hard though, what happened to you. We all did."

-At that she turned to look at him. It was practically the first information about himself that he had given her. They shared a sad smile.

-"Yeah, I missed her too." Her words meant much more than just Brooke though and from the look he gave her, she felt like he understood.

-They broke out of their gaze when Lucas spoke again.

-"There." He said pointing to the entrance. She turned and there she was, Anna.

* * *

**A.N.:** I'm not really proud of that chapter. I tried reworking it but couldn't do any better. Anyway you guys tell me what you think and thanks for reading. 


	3. Chapter 3

-Anna.

-She had waited so long for this moment that to finally be able to see her, it brought tears to her eyes. Lucas seemed to sense her amazement because he stayed quiet and the two of them stared at Anna in silence.

-She couldn't believe that it had been more than a year since she had seen her little girl, but when she looked at her she saw it. She had grown so much, she was beautiful.

-She watched as they stopped and Brooke put Anna on her feet and took her hand before they started walking once again. Lucas was right, her and Brooke seemed really close. They were talking and laughing. Anna, she looked happy. They both looked happy.

-She couldn't believe that she had missed her daughter's first year at school. What had she done to deserve that? All she had done was get on that stupid plane. She didn't take her eyes off her daughter until her and Brooke were in the cab and it drove off.

-"She looks happy." She admitted sadly staring at where she had seen her last.

-"She is." He started. She looked at him and she could see that he was thinking about something. She was considering that maybe he wasn't going to tell her when he spoke again.

-"It took her a long time to get there Peyton." He took a deep breath. "And she still misses you everyday. You can see it in her eyes."

-She nodded sadly and for a second she felt like he had more to say but his cell phone interrupted him.

-He dug it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

-"It's Brooke." He said to her before answering it.

-"Hello." He said into the phone.

-"Hey daddy." At that he smiled, but it faded when he saw the look on Peyton's face. He put a finger to his lips indicating her to be quiet and then he pressed a button, putting the phone on speaker.

-"Hey Ann. How was school?" He asked giving Peyton a small smile.

-"Really great daddy. We painted with our fingers today." Her breath caught in her throat as tears silently rolled down her cheeks. Her daughter was speaking, it was so great to hear her voice again. She never thought she would be so happy just at hearing her voice, but here she was.

-"Great. So what are you guys up to?" He asked keeping an eye on Peyton to make sure she wouldn't speak up.

-"Brooke, she wanted me to ask if it was okay if we went to the park before dinner and then to the movies. She said I could pick. Can we go daddy." She was doing her puppy dog eyes right now, he could already see them in his mind.

-"Sure, you can go. Could you put Brooke on the phone baby?"

-"Okay." She seemed to hesitate. "Are you okay daddy?" She asked with a quiet voice. He took a deep breath looking at Peyton. "Yeah Ann, I'm fine. I'll see you tonight okay."

-"Okay. I love you daddy."

-"I love you too."

-Her head was spinning as there was a short silence. Daddy! Anna had called Lucas daddy. When had that happened? She had no idea what was going on. She was torn out of her thought by another voice that she hadn't heard in ages, Brooke.

-"Hey Scott." Brooke said into the phone. "How's the date going?"

-"It's not a date Brooke." Lucas said sternly refusing to look at her. She felt stupid, it was clear from the interaction between the two that they were not together. Her first thought shouldn't have been that they were.

-"Sure Scott. So is it okay if I take her to the movies after dinner?"

-"It's fine but…"

-"Nothing not child-friendly, I know. I've done that before you know. I'm not completely clueless." Brooke argued into the phone and Peyton smiled.

-"Sorry…"

-"So, you're going to tell me what's going on. You almost never not pick Anna up from school. Which makes me think, you are so going to inform them that I'm not Anna's nanny. They keep calling me that, it's annoying."

-Lucas smiled and they heard Anna laugh in the background.

-"What can I say, it's not my fault if you look like the nanny."

-"You'd so get slap right now if we weren't on the phone. But Luke…" Peyton smiled at the bickering between the two, obviously they spoke often.

-"Something came up. You'll know soon enough, believe me." He finished looking at Peyton who looked down at her shoes.

-"Fine. So we'll see you tonight. I'll call."

-"Thanks Brooke."

-"Sure, no problem. You know I love that kid."

-"Yeah." And with that he hung up the phone, leaving the two of them alone with each other once more.

-"So, they do that often, Brooke and Anna?" She asked quietly.

-"Once or twice a week. Most of the times they stay in though, just play in her room."

-She nodded not knowing what to say. It was so weird to think that at that moment Brooke probably knew her daughter better than she did. It hurt her so much to think about all the things that she had missed because of all this and the worst was that some of the things that she had missed, like Anna's first day of school for example, she was never going to be able to get back.

-"So, ready to tell me what the hell is going on?" He asked barely containing the anger in his voice.

-She took a deep breath dreading this.

-"Do you mind if we do this at your place?" She asked.

-She was buying time, they both knew it, but nonetheless he nodded and the two of them got into a cab for another silent drive.

-She was pretty sure that the Gods were mocking her or something. Whereas the drive to the school had seemed to last forever when she had desperatly wanted it to go quickly, the one to get them back to his apartment had gone faster than she had thought possible. When they walked in, she still wasn't sure of how exactly she was suppose to handle this, she didn't know what she should say or not say. He took the decision for her.

-"What the hell is going on Peyton, they told me you were dead. They told Anna you were dead." The anger was visible in his eyes again, and she decided that she hated it, hated seeing it there.

-"Did you get the letter?" She asked. Before she started, she needed to know.

-His eyes clouded for a few seconds before he spoke.

-"Yeah I did."

-"She called you daddy." She couldn't help it, it was bothering her. She knew that right now it was the least of their problems, but she was convinced that she had told him in the letter that Anna wasn't his.

-"Yeah." She was beginning to get irritated. Wasn't he a writer. He should be able to form sentences with more than a few words.

-"So you know that she…" She couldn't say it. As true as it was, the words just wouldn't come out of her mouth.

-"Isn't genetically mine. Yeah I know. It doesn't change anything though. Beside, she's the one that started it, she asked if it was okay, if she could call me daddy and I said yes."

-Once again, all she could do was nod. It was starting to become a trademark move for her. Everything that was going on, it was leaving her speechless.

-"Peyton, what happened?" He looked concerned.

-She took a deep breath before starting the explanation that she knew he needed to hear.


	4. Chapter 4

-"I jumped." She started, fixing her attention on her hands that were nervously tapping on the table.

-"The parachutes." He spoke, realisation dawning on him. He couldn't believe that all this time he had thought that she was dead. He had known about those damn parachutes since the beginning but not once had he considered that she might have been one of them. It would have hurt too much if it had turned out false. Now he was really starting to think that he should have looked into it more.

-"Yeah. I don't remember much. All I know was that we started to hear some strange noises and then the captain said something about staying calm and that air attendants were going to start handing out parachutes. I was lucky, I was seated right by the compartment were they were stored. I was the first to get one." She paused collecting her thoughts.

- Lucas could see that it was hard for her to say these things, to remember what had happened, but he couldn't stop her, well more like wouldn't, he really needed to know.

-"Then there was this explosion and people started to panic and next thing I know I was pushed off the plane. I'm not really sure what happened after that, I must have figured out how to open it somehow." She brushes the tears off her eyes and he felt bad for her, she must have went through hell.

-"What happened after that? If you jumped than why did they not find you right away?" His voice his strong, almost cold, but it's the complete opposite of what he feels inside. He's completely lost and confused.

-"I'm not sure what happened. I woke up in the middle of nowhere, alone. I was hurting, God every single part of my body was aching. I felt like I was being torn apart. I had no idea where I was or what was going on. I was terrified, so I walked. I have no idea how long I walked." She once again pauses to collect herself.

-"Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital with no memory of who I was or of what had happened." There, she was done. She had finished recounting the terrible events of that day. She felt relieved, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

-"When was that?" He knew that she had been through enough already and that this was probably hell for her but he needed to know. He didn't know why, all he knew was that he needed to know precisely what had happened to her.

-"3 months ago. They told me that I had been in a coma for close to 9 months." She was exhausted but she knew that if she wanted to see her daughter she was going to have to answer Lucas' question, so she pushed it away and looked up at him.

-"What happened after that?"

-"I was in pretty bad shape. The swelling in my brain, because of the fall, it took about a month to withdraw and there was a lot of other surgeries, I don't remember them all, it's still pretty fuzzy."

-"So at some point you started to remember." He didn't know why but he couldn't look at her, it was just too hard.

-"Yeah, about a month ago, some things started to come back to me. Fist thing I remembered was Anna, but without my name there was nothing that they could do. Somehow I knew that she was safe, that's what allowed me to be able to focus on getting better. About two weeks ago, I finally remembered my last name and the doctors were able to start the process to give me my life back." She finished trying to look at him but he wouldn't allow her.

-"What about me? Did you remember me?" He had no idea what possessed him to ask her that, it was completely irrelevant and beside he didn't even know what he wanted to hear, what he was ready to hear.

-She froze. How was she suppose to answer that? There wasn't really a good answer and she had no idea what he wanted to hear. Finally she settled for the truth.

-"Yeah, of course I remembered you Luke. Right after I remembered Anna, somehow my mind made the link. At first it was flashes you know. I'd see images of you, of us. I could see your face but I couldn't remember your name. It took me a long time to associate the names that were floating around in my brain with the images I was seeing, but yeah I remembered you and I can't imagine ever forgetting again."

-For the first time since she had started talking their eyes met and for the briefest moment they were connected again. That is until Lucas looked away, he just couldn't bare this.

-"What's going to happen now Peyton?" He asked quietly.

-"I have no idea. I'm probably as confused as you are Luke."

-He nodded sadly.

-"Don't take her away."

-"What?" He had talked so quietly that she wasn't sure if she had heard him right.

-"Anna. Don't take her away Peyton. I can't loose her, she's all I have." He still wouldn't look at her.

-She froze, what the hell was she suppose to answer to that. She had thought a lot about what she was going to do when she saw her daughter again but she really hadn't thought about what was going to happen to Lucas. How she was going to handle things. Sure her romantic side had a nice little scenario for her where the three of them became the perfect family and everything turned out perfect, but who was she kidding she had flushed that down the drain a long time ago.

-"Oh!" She paused. "Look, I don't know what I'm going to do Luke, but I'm sure we can figure things out. After everything that happened to me, I want to fix things."

-"With Anna."

-"Among others." There eyes connected again and he felt this huge weight lift off of his shoulders. There was no denying that look, she was including him in that and that brought emotions out in him that he hadn't felt in ages.

-"Thanks." He didn't know why he was thanking her, in reflection it was idiotic, he was thanking her for something that she had barely implied.

-"Luke, how is she? Anna." She clarified. This discussion was making her uncomfortable but she really wanted to know how her daughter was really doing.

-"Now good, well as good as can be expected. When I flew over there to get her she was in a group home, they had already told her that you were dead when they had taken her away from your apartment and the babysitter. She wasn't talking, wasn't eating, she was pretty shaken up. They had tried to have her see a shrink but that hadn't worked." He looked over at her to see that tears were streaming down her eyes. He couldn't even imagine how hard it must be for her to hear that. When he saw her look up at him, he continued.

-"She knew who I was though and she knew why I was there. You had told her I guess." He looked up at her. That had been bothering him ever since Anna had looked up at him knowing exactly who he was.

-She rubbed off the tears. She had assumed that it must have been terrible for her daughter but hearing it, it was worst. She felt so bad that she had put her daughter through his hell.

-"Yeah, I had shown her pictures, told her stories you know."

-"Yeah, like the one of me being your prince." He smiled wanting to relieve a little bit of the tension that was surrounding them and at the expression on her face he wasn't regretting it. She looked like a kid caught with a hand in the candy jar.

-"I can't believe she told you that." She smiled shyly once the surprise had dissipated.

-"Yeah it came up in a discussion about when she was going to meet her prince." He grimaced.

-She smiled. "What'd you tell her?"

-"Not before she was forty." He smiled back and she laughed quietly and for a few seconds they could pretend that they weren't in the middle of this hugely complicated situation.

"So, how was it once you brought her back here?" And just like that they were right back there.

-"Hard. She cried a lot, had nightmares. She'd wake up screaming. Slowly she got her appetite back and a few weeks later she started speaking again. That's when she asked me if I could be her daddy." He smiled a little remembering that day.

-"How'd that go?" Something about his smile made her want to know.

-"She just came up with it you know. I was watching tv and she appeared in front of me all serious and she spoke. I almost had an heart attack, the last thing I had expected was for her to speak, much less to ask me if I could become her daddy. She said that she knew I wasn't her real dad but that since she didn't have a mom anymore and that I had told her repeatedly that I loved her. She said that you had told her something about how what made you her mom was more how much you loved her than anything biological. She was right. You were right, so I told her yes and she's been calling me that ever since." He smiled sadly and her heart ached.

-"I always wished that it had been you." What the hell is wrong with me, she chastised as soon as the words had left her mouth. The situation wasn't as awkward enough as it was, she really hadn't needed to make it worst.

-"You said that in the letter too." He had been shocked to hear her leave the protectiveness of the conversation to talk about the mess that was their relationship but he answered nonetheless.

-"Yeah, and I meant it. I still do. If you want to be her dad than I have nothing against it. It's the least I can do after all that you did for me and Anna. I'm sure she'd love it."

-He froze, completely confused about what she was referring to.

-"What, what do you mean?" He babbled.

-"I kind of just came up with this and you can totally say no if it's too much for you, but I was thinking, that maybe, I mean if you want to, you really don't, we can find another way and…"

-"Peyton." He stopped her from babbling more, smiling at the sound of her name coming from his lips. He had missed saying her name so much.

-"All that is about to happen, it's probably going to be a lot for her and if she could benefit from as much stability as possible, that would probably help and…"

-"Peyton." He brought her back on track again. He had an idea what she meant but he really needed to hear her say it.

-" You could adopt her."


	5. Chapter 5

-"You could adopt her?" What the hell was wrong with her. Maybe the doctors should have kept me there longer, she thought, because clearly something was still seriously wrong with her. They hadn't seen each other in forever and here she was asking him to adopt her daughter.

-"What?" There was no way she had said what he thought she had said, it was just way too much.

-"Forget it, it was just an idea. It's stupid."

-"No. No of course it's not. It's just… Are you sure? I mean…" There was no way he was just going to let her back away like that, not when she had just offered him one of the best thing that could ever happen to him, a child with her. That was such a Peyton thing to do, say something than take it back when the reaction wasn't what she had expected it to be. It was reassuring to know that she hadn't changed that much in all this time, but still, he wasn't going to let her do this this time. He just needed to be sure that she meant it.

-"Anna loves you, I could see that through a simple phone call. She loves you and she always wanted a dad, she deserves one. Beside, this is probably going to be hard for her and I want her to keep at least that part of stability."

-"Are you sure? Because if we do this, then you can't just change your mind and undo it."

-She swallowed the accusation about their past relationship without a word and thought about what he had just said.

-She couldn't believe that things were moving this fast. Less than 3 hours ago she was terrified about seeing him and Anna, and now she was offering him to adopt Anna.

-But somehow, as she thought about it more closely, it just felt right. She had always wished that things had been different between her and Lucas and that Anna could have a father present in her life and somehow the crash, it had given her that and the last thing she wanted was to take that away.

-"Yeah. I mean it's probably going to take a while to finalize and everything since they're still in the process of giving me my identity back but I don't want to take you away from her, or her from you." She looked up at him and saw the biggest smile on his face that she had seen since she had walked through the door and she smiled too.

-"I can't believe this." He said happily. He had looked into adopting Anna a few months back, but with only the legal guardianship documents it was a terribly long and uncertain procedure. With Peyton's approval though, it should be much easier. He couldn't believe that just like that one of his dreams was coming true, Anna was officially going to become his daughter. It was crazy how things could change fast and he couldn't help but think that maybe there was some hope for his other dreams too, the ones that he had buried so long ago.

-"Yeah, me neither. Believe me, when I knocked on that door it hadn't even crossed my mind that I would be offering you this." She smiled back shyly.

-"So, how are you doing with everything, I mean with me being here and all?" She asked tentatively after a few minutes.

-"I thought you were dead." He answered without looking at her. Somehow, no matter the time that passed, that wound was still fresh.

-"Oh!" She looked at her shoes not knowing what to say.

-"I don't really know how I feel, I mean it's a big shock but I'm happy you're not dead." He conceded seeing the expression on her face. His mind was still spinning at the idea of her being alive, he hadn't really had time to think about what it meant or what was going to happen, but what he did know was that he was happy that she was here.

-"Yeah, so, you think Anna's going to be happy too?" She asked uncertainly. It was clear to her that Anna had a life here now with Lucas, and Brooke, and she wasn't clear on what was her place now in her daughter's life and all that ambiguity was killing her. Why did all of that had to happen?

-"Yeah, of course she's going to be happy. She's been wishing to anybody who would hear it for you to come back ever since you…, she even asked Santa, which by the way is the reason why she's not in good term with him." He smiled sadly remembering Anna's pain at Christmas. Ever since, Anna had made it clear that she was angry at Santa and that he wasn't going to get any cookies next year, which as cute as it was, was still heartbreaking.

-"What?" She was totally confused, she had missed so much. She was just now realising that she had missed Christmas and it was killing her to have to think about what it must have been like for Anna.

-"I'll be right back." He told her leaving the kitchen. She was so nervous about seeing Anna and thinking about what her reaction to her presence was going to be that she was barely conscious of how long Lucas was gone. When she heard the noise of a chair being pulled back she was snapped out of the thought by Lucas who pushed a sheet of paper in front of her. She looked up at him questionably.

-"Read it." He told her with an unreadable expression on her face.

-She took it in her hands and she recognized Lucas' handwriting immediately. She smiled at the memory but it was incredibly short lived as her eyes went over the first line. Her eyes began to water as if on cue. She hated that Anna had went through this pain. For herself to be in pain she could deal with, but it had always been the last thing that she had wanted for Anna to go through it as well.

-She remembered well how she had felt when she had lost her mom, the pain, but at least she had been older, she had been able to understand that there was nothing that anybody could do to bring her back. Anna was much younger, it must have been so hard for her to deal with the deception of not having her prayers answered.

-"Hey!" She looked up at Lucas who now had a caring expression on his face.

-He was now seriously starting to confuse her. One minute he looked angry with her, then he looked like he couldn't care less, then there were the times when he looked in pain, and now she had to add that one to the mix. She had no idea what was going on with him, but it was going to have to wait, she needed to fix things with her daughter first.

-Looking at her tear-filled eyes now, he realised precisely how hard this must be for her. Not only did she have to deal with what had happened to her, she needed to deal with what the consequences of all that had been on Anna. At that moment, she pierced his walls all over again, and he was the guy that he had been so long ago, the guy that couldn't bare to see her in pain.

-"You're here now, it's all that matters."

-"Really?" She looked up at him sceptically. "Yeah I'm here, but I can't take the pain away. I can't go back and save her from all of that. I just don't know what I'm suppose to do now." She cried in her hands.

-"Peyton."

-"I can't hurt her more Luke, I just can't." She cried again.

-"Hey, you're not going to hurt her. It might be a shock at first but she's going to be so happy that you're back." He reassured. He didn't know why he was saying all of that, he had no idea how Anna was going to take it. It had been one of the things that had bothered him the most since he had opened his eyes to find her here, but still he wanted to make her feel better, at least for now.

-"Yeah, I hope so. So, how's that going go?" She asked drying the tears on her cheeks.

-"How what's going to go?" He asked confused.

-"Telling Anna." She said quietly. She had been so happy before, but now, she just didn't want to put her daughter through more than she had already been through.

-"Oh! Well I don't really know." They shared an awkward smile. "Look what about we eat and then we can talk about all that." He suggested looking at the clock and seeing that it was getting late. Beside that was going to give him some time to think about everything and try to figure things out.

-"Yeah, sure." She accepted, her too thankful for the break. It had been a stressful afternoon and she needed some time to figure things out.


	6. Chapter 6

-Making and eating dinner had created a new definition for the word awkward. No matter how much each of them tried, neither could repress the memories of the two of them doing this exact same thing when they were together and those memories were putting an awkward spin to an already tensed situation.

-They couldn't talk about the past, they were already trying to avoid talking about the present and talking about the future, well there was no way neither of them was ready to walk into that conversation yet. Even talking about Anna was bringing discomfort. Lucas had tried asking Peyton about how Anna was growing up and then realised that somehow it hurt him to hear her talk about their life in Los Angeles, so that subject had been dropped. Talking about Anna's life now was doing the exact same thing to Peyton, so that hadn't been a good idea either.

-They had talked a little about their common friends and what they were doing, but other than that, the dinner had been excruciatingly long and both of them were relieved when it finally ended. They knew that they were going to have to talk about what had happened between them at some point if they wanted to be able to be slightly less awkward with each other, which they were going to have to be for Anna, but right now, the two of them were way too far into brooding mode to be able to sustain a normal conversation, hence the silence.

-Finally, after an equally weird clean up, Lucas finally ventured into a conversation.

-"So, what are you going to do?" He asked sitting himself on the sofa while Peyton uneasily took a seat on the other couch.

-"About what?"

-"Your life. I mean are you going to go back to L.A.?" That question had been on his mind for hours. He was happy that he was going to adopt Anna but still, if Peyton took the two of them back to California it was going to make it harder for him to see her, well both of them but he wasn't ready to talk about that yet.

-"Oh! I don't really know. I mean I don't even have a job or a place to live anymore so I'm going to have to start at the beginning either way and I have no idea how's that going to go. All I have really thought about was Anna."

-"You could stay here." Crap, he couldn't believe that he had just said that. Thinking it was one thing, but opening his stupid mouth that was a whole other thing. He could see from the way she looked back at him that she was as confused as he was by his last statement.

-"In New York?" She asked confused.

-"Yeah, or you could stay here with Anna and me, I mean until you get things settled at least." Here he was opening his stupid mouth again. They could barely be in each other's presence and here he was offering her to come live with him. That hadn't even gone well the first time that he had asked her. What the hell was he hoping for this time?

-"Here. As in here, in this apartment?" She stuttered completely unable to hide her surprise. Staying in New York she had started to consider when she had realised that Anna was happy here, but staying with Lucas, well that's a whole other thing, there was so much history between them.

-"Yeah, I mean till you're settled at least. I mean you said that you don't have a job and an hotel is going to get expensive at some point and it's probably going to take some time for Anna to adapt and for this whole thing to be fixed. Anna has her room here and all her things and that way you could be with her and your things they are in storage so if you want your clothes and stuff you can have them and you wouldn't have to pay for things and you could have time to get back on your feet and…"

-"Lucas." She stopped his babbling, stopping herself from thinking too much about how cute he was when he was doing that, that wasn't the time.

-He looked up at her. "You kept my stuff?"

-"Oh! Yeah sure. I mean you had left it all to Anna and I figured she could decide herself what she wanted to do with it when she was old enough. Also, all your money is in an account in her name. I could probably arrange to have it transfer back to you and…"

-"Lucas!" she stopped him again.

-"Thanks. For everything." She meant more than the stuff and the money and he knew it. He nodded.

-"It was the least I could do."

-"Yeah. Are you sure about that though?" She asked, considering why the hell she was even considering it, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

-"About what?" They were really going to need to work on their communication because that was getting ridiculous.

-"Me living here. Are you really sure that it's really what you want because it could get complicated and…"

-"I'm sure." He paused. "That's what best for Anna." He added to relieve some of the tension between the two of them.

-"Okay." She saw the confused look on his face. "I'm going to stay, until things are settled at least." She added for the same reasons.

-He nodded, "good." "So, do you need any help to get your things?" He asked.

-"Oh! Huh not really, I don't have much. Do you want me to go get them now?" She asked staring at the clock, it was almost 7 pm.

-"Yeah, you might as well. Anna and Brooke shouldn't be here for another hour, you should have time." He was doing his best not to freak out at the thought that Peyton was going to be staying in his apartment, God, a few hours ago he thought she was dead.

-"Okay. I'll be right back." She said quietly before going in the direction of the door. She was almost gone when he heard her speak again.

-"I missed you." And with that she was gone.

-He has no idea how long he looked at the door that she had just exited through but before he had the time to realise what is going on tears are pouring out of his eyes and he can't stop them.

-Ever since he had learned about the terrible news he had hoped that something like this was going to happen. He couldn't voice this hope or even let himself consider the possibly too much because it would have destroyed him if it hadn't came through but now, now she was here.

-There were so many emotions floating through him as he sat on the floor crying that he wouldn't have been able to identify all of them. He was relieved, that much he knew. It had been so hard to think of his life without her in it, to live each day knowing that they were never going to fix things between them. But now, now that she was here maybe they were finally going to get their chance. He wasn't sure if he was ready yet, there was so much that he needed to deal with first, but somehow knowing that she was alive, that he was going to be able to get that chance if he was ever ready, it was a relief.

-Peyton was able to make it into her hotel room before she finally let the tears that she had been holding in run down her cheeks. It had been such an emotional afternoon. From Lucas fainting on her, to the conflicting emotions that she saw in his eyes, to his relationship with Anna, and her relationship with Brooke, almost everything that had happened today had been far from her expectations.

-And that was not even considering her asking Lucas to adopt Anna or him asking her to move in. Those two were so far off the chart that she had no idea what to make of them or why the hell the two of them had said these things.

-Also, she couldn't get Anna's letter to Santa out of her head. Anna didn't simply want her back, she wanted her to come back so her, Anna and Lucas could be a family, and that, as great as it seemed to her in her dreams, was going to be very complicated. She wanted to give that to her daughter and to herself, really she did, but her and Lucas already had issues before the whole plane crash, supposed dead fiasco.

-She knew that she wanted to fix things with Lucas. She had known that leaving had been a mistake pretty much from the get go, but she had been too scared to come back to him.

-When she had started to remember things after the crash though, all those memories that she had fought so hard before to forget, they were all thrown at her and she had realized that she had been given a second chance and that she wasn't going to loose it because she was scared, she had come too close from losing him completely to give up on the idea of the two of them being together again.

-No, she wasn't going to give up on Lucas, but for now, the two of them were going to have to wait, she needed to put her life in order first.

-She packed her stuff, looked around to make sure that she hadn't forgotten anything and closed the door behind her.

-"Here we go." She said quietly leaving the hotel in direction of Lucas' apartment.


	7. Chapter 7

-Lucas had recuperated from his previous breakdown and was in the living room pretending to watch tv when he heard a knock at the door. He sighed and slowly got up to go answer it.

-"I forgot to give you a key, sorry." He told her as he opened the door. Seeing her there, at his door, right in front of him, it seemed unbelievable. No matter the amount of times he told himself that she really was alive, he just couldn't help the surprise at seeing her there.

-"It's alright." She said quietly. It was getting to her too to have him right in front of her. It had been so long.

-"Oh! Come on in." He realised that she had been standing there and let her through. "It's all you have?" He asked staring at her small duffel bag.

-"Oh! Yeah, I only bought a few things when I got out of the hospital." She said slightly embarrassed.

-"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have sa…" He saw her expression and felt guilty.

-"It's fine." She interrupted him. She was tired of people apologizing for her screwed up life, it wasn't anybody's fault.

-They walked into the apartment. "So, I was thinking you take my room I'm going to sleep in my office, there's a futon."

-"Huh no you don't have to, I could…"

-"Take my room Peyton." He decided for them.

-In consideration, he probably felt as awkward with her sleeping in his bedroom that she seemed to feel at the idea, but it was not like he could have her sleep on the futon, she had just gotten out of the hospital for god's sake.

-"You sure?" She asked trying to hide her embarrassment.

-"Yeah." He walked into a room and she followed. "That's it." He motioned to the interior of the room.

-It was very him. The walls were a deep blue and the furniture was simple but beautiful. She walked in slowly and left her bag on the floor.

-"I'm just going to take a few things, Brooke called, her and Anna should be here in about 15 minutes." He saw her distressed expression.

-"Don't worry, you can hide here till Brooke's gone and tell her when you're ready. I was thinking that we could go get your clothes tomorrow while Anna's at school if it's okay."

-"Huh sure." She was completely distracted by the thought that she was going to see her daughter in 15 minutes, it seemed so surreal.

-She followed Lucas distractedly as he took a few pieces of clothing and left the room. The two of them walked in the office. This room was totally different from the rest of the apartment. You could see that he spent a great amount of time here. Everything felt like him. She took a deep breath to calm down her emotions.

-"Your apartment, it's beautiful."

-"Thanks." He said, awkwardly sitting on his desk.

-"I read it you know." She said looking at the posters that were on the wall.

-"What?" He asks not knowing which book she was talking about.

-"Your first novel. I read it. It was great."

-"Oh!" And just like that they were back at awkward again. His book had been about her, about them and they both knew it.

-After their break-up, he had been reticent to have it published, but his publisher had refused to pull it out, so it had been published, much to his dismay. He had to spent to next few months diffusing questions about who the book was about from readers and journalists. He had always wondered if she had read it though.

-"Lucas…" They were interrupted by the sound of Anna and Brooke walking in.

-"Daddy I'm back." They both froze at hearing Anna's voice.

-Peyton's first reflex had been to run to her daughter, hug her and never let her go but the next voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

-"Scott, we're here." She couldn't see Brooke now. As much as she had missed her and wanted to see her again, she just couldn't do it now. She wasn't ready to go over everything again and she wanted to see Anna alone first.

-Lucas finally unfroze.

-"Stay here, I'll bring her here when Brooke's gone." Lucas said with an unreadable expression on his face as he left the room and closed the door behind him.

-How the hell was he going to do this? This question was the only thing that he could think about as he made his way to the vestibule.

-"Daddy!!!!" Anna yelped as she ran to him and jumped into his arms.

-He hugged her and kissed her hair distractedly.

-"Hey baby! Did you have fun with Brooke?" He asked setting her back down.

-"Yup we went to the park and we played on the swings and then we went to a really pretty restaurant and I ate chicken nuggets and after we went to the movies and we saw the movie about the horse." She said excitedly.

-"I'm glad you had fun. Did you say thank you to Brooke?"

-"Don't worry broody, she did. The kid's an angel." Brooke smiled at the little girl. "So, not that I want to bail but I got to go, I got a very important meeting in the morning."

-"Thanks again Brooke." Lucas said giving her a hug.

-"No problem. Like I said, I love to spend time with the kid. I'll see you Sunday kiddo." She told Anna, bending down to give the little girl a big hug.

-"Okay Brooke." Anna said hugging her back.

-"I'm going to expect an explanation of broody central Luke, just so we're clear." She smirked at Lucas.

-"I'm not broody."

-"Tell that to your face." She smirked again and Lucas smirked back.

-"Not funny. Well anyway, you'll probably find out soon enough. Good night Brooke." Lucas said opening the door for her. Brooke gave one last hug to Anna and got up.

-"Good night kiddo, bye Luke." And just like that she was out the door.

-"You hungry?" Lucas asked Anna once Brooke was gone and the two of them were left alone in the apartment, well for Anna they were alone.

-She nodded excitedly and the two of them made their way to the kitchen. Lucas prepared her snack and handed it to her while listening to her talk about her day at school and her night with Brooke.

-He knew that Peyton was in the other room, probably a nervous wreck, waiting to see Anna, but he needed time to figure out what the hell he was going to say to the girl beforehand since 'hey sweetie it turns out your mommy wasn't dead' was probably not going to cut it.

-He wanted to be honest with her, but he also knew that at barely six the chances that she would understand what was happening were pretty slim. Hell, he was 26 and he was completely confused on how this all could have happened.

-Finally, as she was done with her snack and was about to go play into her room before bath time he gathered his courage and spoke.

-"Ann, baby. There is something that I need to talk to you about."


	8. Chapter 8

-"What is it daddy?" Anna walked back to her father.

-"Hum, look Anna, this is really hard to understand and it's probably going to take time, but…"

-"Daddy?" She asked worryingly. She wasn't used to seeing her father babbling, it was making her nervous.

-"There is someone here to see you sweetie, someone you haven't seen in a long time." He started, his palms damp from the nervousness.

-"Who daddy?" Anna asked curiously. She still had no idea what he wanted to tell her.

-"You remember at Christmas? What you asked?" He looked down at her a sad smile on his face.

-The little girl looked at him completely confused for a few seconds and then nodded with big eyes as she was starting to realize who he was talking about.

-"She's waiting for you in my office." He finally spilled, a worried expression on his face.

-Anna looked up at him quizzically, silently asking him if it was true and when she saw him nod, she took off running toward the office. Lucas sighed and then went after her quickly.

-Peyton paced the room nervously waiting for Lucas to come back with her daughter. She had heard Brooke leave a while ago and was wondering what was taking so long. The wait was killing her, she was a nervous wreck. It was so weird for her to feel this way, to be nervous about seeing her daughter. She hadn't been this terrified of Anna since she had given birth to her six years ago and that was because she was worried about not being a good enough mother, about somehow letting the little girl down. Now it was a whole other matter, she was terrified of being rejected, that somehow what had happened had hurt Anna so much that she wouldn't want anything to do with her. She had no idea what she was going to do if that happened, Anna was all her life, she needed her.

-She knew how hard it must have been for Anna and that more than likely the little girl was going to have to adapt to having her back in her life, but still, all that she wanted was to have her daughter back, she had missed her so much.

-Peyton was torn out of her thoughts when the door flew open and she turned fully expecting to be facing Lucas. Her breath caught in her throat when her eyes met Anna's surprised ones.

-She wanted more than anything in the world to run to her, hug her and never let her go but as she was about to do just that and took a step forward, she saw Anna take one back.

-She stopped dead in her tracks, her heart silently breaking at what had just happened. Anna was backing away from her.

-Tears started to pour down her face as she made eye contact with her little angel again. She was so beautiful, Peyton couldn't believe how much she had grown since she had last seen her. Even with tears streaming down her cheeks, to her, Anna had never looked so beautiful.

-She was vaguely aware of Lucas standing closely behind Anna. He too seemed to be frozen in the moment as he looked worryingly at the interaction between mother and daughter without a word. Peyton wasn't looking at him though, her eyes were fixed on Anna.

-The two Sawyers spent seconds, or maybe it was minutes, she wouldn't know, staring at each other. Peyton was trying to size her daughter up, hoping to see what was going on in the little girl's head, while Anna seemed to be in some kind of trance, her eyes never leaving her mother's, probably trying to figure out what was hapenning.

-Finally, Peyton decided to take a chance.

-"Anna." She breathed. God it felt so good to speak to her again, she would have never imagined it could feel like that just to say her name. "I missed you so much baby." She cried.

-Anna cried even harder at that, but she didn't move. She just stood there, tears pouring out of her beautiful green eyes.

-"Mommy?" She finally managed to utter through the tears.

-Peyton's heart leapt at that and for a second she thought that things were going to be okay, that Anna was going to run into her arms and that they would both cried together, but seriously who was she kidding, her life never could be that easy.

-Anna took a couple steps forwards and then stopped dead in her tracks and her face changed completely.

-Her eyes went from awed to angry in a matter of seconds. Tears were still streaming down her face when she looked up at her mother with an accusing glare.

-"You left." She cried and with that she quickly turned around and ran out of the room crying.

-Lucas and Peyton stood completely still, both too shock to do or say anything but look at each other worryingly. What took them out of the trance they were in was the noise of a door being slammed.

-"Oh God!" Peyton breathed. She had never seen so much anger on her daughter's face, it felt like a punch in the gut. Gathering her courage, she moved and started to walked toward the door and Lucas.

-"Peyton don't." Lucas stepped in in front of her as she was about to walk through the door.

-"Lucas, I have to talk to her." Peyton begged, tears in her eyes. She couldn't get that accusing, angry look out of her head.

-"Peyton, it's obviously too soon." Lucas pleaded with her. He hated to do that, hated to stop her from going after her daughter. He was pretty much completely lost in his own self right now, with Peyton coming back and everything, he felt like he was walking on auto-pilot, but he still knew that he had to do what was best for Anna and obviously she was in no shape to talk to Peyton right now.

-"Luke I…" She tried again but he didn't move. It was killing him but he couldn't let her do it, not now anyway.

-"Let me. I'll talk to her, see what I can do." He told her before leaving the room. Peyton dried off some of her tears and followed after him.

-Lucas walked into the room quietly and Peyton watched from the doorway, feeling worst than she had in months and that was saying a lot considering that she had spent a rather the better part of the year getting cut into.

-The first thing he saw when he walked into the room was Anna lying on her side facing away from them, he could hear her crying.

-Lucas took a deep breath, he hadn't seen her like this in so long, it was breaking his heart. He quickly made his way to the bed and sat beside her, rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly while she continued crying.

-It was so hard for him, sitting there, watching her cry, and it was even harder when he turned and saw Peyton crying as well. He wanted to help her, really he did. He had never been able to stand to see her cry. He wanted to fix things, he wanted for Anna and Peyton to both be happy and yet he didn't know what he was suppose to say to make that happen.

-"Anna. Anna talk to me sweetie." He tried when her crying rescinded a little.

-She didn't turn but after a few minutes she spoke.

-"Why did she leave daddy?" Her voice was so sad, so heartbroken, he wanted to cry.

-He didn't really know what to say so he looked back at Peyton. The two of them were nowhere near as closed as they used to be, but still, seeing her like that, it made him ache to just go to her and hold her to take the pain away. She looked so sad, so torn, he knew that she wanted nothing more than to step in and comfort Anna, but he guiltily stopped her with a look.

-He wanted to help Peyton, but right now, Anna was his only priority. She was hurting and he needed to do something. Then, after he had dealt with Anna, he could deal with Peyton and then after maybe, maybe he could deal with himself.

-"Anna…"

-"Why daddy?" She asked again, stuttering through her tears.

-He looked at Peyton sadly and then turned back to the little girl.

-"Your mommy never left you Ann, she would never do that."

-"Yes she did. She went away, she was gone. That lady she told me that mommy was gone forever."

-"The lady made a mistake Ann. Look, it's really complicated and I don't expect you to understand everything, but mommy, she got hurt really really bad. She was hurt so bad that everybody thought that she wasn't going to come back, that she was going to stay with the angels. But they were wrong sweetie, mommy got better and as soon as she could, she came back for you."

-Anna considered this for a few seconds.

-"Did you thought that she was gone forever too daddy?"

-He sighed, looked at Peyton and then back at Anna. "Yeah Ann, I thought so too."

-Anna was silent once again for a few seconds.

-"But she left daddy." She cried.

-"I know baby. Look, I know you're angry but try not to be angry at your mommy too long. It wasn't her choice, if she had had anything to say about it, she would have never left."

-She seemed to be contemplating this for a while and then something came to her.

-"Daddy, she's not going to take me back right?" She finally turned to look at him and shot an angry look at Peyton on the way, her mother looking down at her shoes.

-"No you're not going back to California." He stated with a smile and then kissed her forehead.

-"Look when you're feeling better, we're all going to have to talk, but for now just know that you and your mommy aren't going anywhere. She's going to stay right here and so are you."

-Anna nodded. Brushing away some tears as more started to come out of her eyes.

-"Ann, whenever you're ready, your mommy is going to be right here waiting for you." He smiled back at Peyton who nodded sadly.

-"Will she leave again?" The insecurity was back in her voice again and he hated it.

-"No Ann, mommy's not leaving again. I promise."

-Anna nodded and Lucas thought that she was going to ask for Peyton but she did the exact opposite.

-"Daddy I want to sleep now." She turned her back away from him again and Lucas sighed.

-"Okay Ann, okay. Just call if you need me alright."

-"'Night daddy."

-"'Night Ann."

-He stood up and kissed her forehead before walking back to the door and leading Peyton out. She hesitated, looking down at her daughter worryingly, and then finally let Lucas lead her out of the room.

-He turned the door behind him and turned to Peyton.

-"Peyt."

-"I'm tired Lucas. I'm going to go to sleep if that's okay."

-"Peyton, she'll be fine. She just needs time to deal with everything."

-"Yeah. I'm going to go." She turned, heading toward Lucas' room.

-"Peyton!" He took a step toward her.

-"Just let it go Luke. I get it." And with that she walked into the room and closed the door behind her, leaving a troubled Lucas behind.


	9. Chapter 9

-It had been hours and still he couldn't close his eyes for even a single moment. He couldn't get the image of Peyton's tearstained face out of his mind.

-Now that he had no distractions to avoid the subjects, all his thoughts were on her. He couldn't believe that she was alive, that she was here, just next door. All this time, he thought that he was never going to see her again and now she was here.

-He couldn't help but feel guilty, he kept thinking that if he had looked for her, he could have found out about her being alive much earlier and maybe her and Anna wouldn't be going through all of this now.

-He knew Peyton was hurting. Even though they hadn't seen each other in years, she was still as easy for him to read. He hated for her to feel this way and that Anna hadn't reacted the way that she had hoped she would. He couldn't bare knowing that there was not much he could do. He couldn't make Anna forgive her or erase all the pain from the last year, all he could do was stand by and hope for the best and he hated that.

-Realizing that he wasn't going to get sleep anytime soon, he got out of bed and exited his room, or office as it was. He went and checked on Anna. The little girl was still sleeping, but even in her sleep she looked sad. He wanted nothing more than for Anna to be happy, yet he could understand how she felt. He, too, had been angry at Peyton, for dying, for leaving him, but whereas he knew that Peyton had had no control over what had happened to her, Anna thought that Peyton had left deliberately and was angry about it.

-He kissed her forehead, told her that he loved her and then left the room. He was about to walk back to his office when a thought crossed his mind and he went into another direction.

-Every fibre of his being was telling him that it was a bad idea and that he had enough issues to sort through as it was, but he couldn't stop himself, he walked into his bedroom.

-She was so beautiful there, lying on his bed, sleeping. He carefully walked closer and just looked at her. He hadn't seen her in so long and he hadn't been able to bring himself to admire her earlier, there had been so much tension. But now he could, and he couldn't take his eyes away.

-Her curls were as tight as he remembered, the colour though was a little lighter and it was longer, but she still looked as beautiful as ever. He had never met a woman that could make him feel so many emotions just by looking at her. Looking at Peyton, watching her sleep, it was like being transported back in time, all the emotions that she had always made him feel, they were rushing back.

-He looked at her closely. Her traits were relaxed and yet he could still see pain in them. Even in her sleep she looked tormented.

-Slowly he backed away and sat himself on the floor, his back resting on the wall, and his eyes still fixed on her. For her to be there, to him it was such a miracle that he couldn't take his eyes away from her.

-He couldn't count how many hours he had spent doing just that during their time together. Him and Peyton had dated for over a year in a half and he had spent countless hours watching her sleep just like now during that time. Most of the time, it had been circumstantial. He was an early riser, Peyton hated mornings, consequently, he was bound to wake up before her. He would spend this time watching her, admiring her. Peyton had never really felt comfortable having people flattering her, so this time, in the morning, before she woke, had always been for him the best time to do so without making her uncomfortable.

-During her internship, he used to get up a few hours early, just so that he could watch her sleep through her web cam. She always pretended that she had forgotten to turn it off but somehow he felt like she was doing it for him, that she knew he wanted to watch her and that it was the reason why she 'forgot' to turn it off. When she had gotten back and started art school here in New York, he had kept the habitude, waking up early, turn around and just watch her.

-It had been one of the worst thing about her deciding to go back to L.A. to start a degree in music management, he couldn't watch her sleep anymore, didn't have the escape that it procured, well that and the fact that he didn't have her point blank.

-When he had agreed to her leaving, he had never thought that he wasn't going to see her for seven years.

-Now, thinking back on it as she slept, he couldn't help but think that they should have tried to figure things out, find a way to be together, but they hadn't and as a result had completely lost touch with one another. It had taken her almost dying to bring them back into each other's life and he was going to be damned if he let her walk away again.

-He knew that tonight, when she had refused to talk to him and took refuge in her room, that she was isolating herself, building her walls to shield herself from the pain of Anna's reaction. He knew that, he just didn't know what he was suppose to do about it. He wished that she would talk to him, tell him what she felt, but he knew that a long time had passed and that it was highly unlikely to happen, for now anyway.

-He rested his head on the wall again, his mind flowing with images of her and of them together and next thing he knew, he was fast asleep.

* * *

-Her eyes opened difficultly, the light streaming from the window hurting them. It took her only a few seconds to remember where she was and what had happened the previous day. The events flashed in front of her eyes, and her heart broke all over again. 

-She had had a terrible night, her sleep had been plagued by Anna's pain as well as her own. Her sleep had been restless, yet she couldn't think of going back to sleep, she had so much to do, she wanted to fix things, that hadn't changed, she had realised though, that it was probably going to be much harder than she thought.

-She was about to get up when her eyes met the figure of her ex-boyfriend, sleeping on the floor beside her bed.

-For a few seconds she was frozen in shock, conflicting emotions flowing through her at the sight; she couldn't identify them all. It brought her immense relieve to know that somehow he had watched over her last night, that somehow he still cared enough to want to be there.

-She relaxed back into the bed and turned to look at him, laying on her side, her head on the pillow.

-He didn't look like he was resting, he looked troubled, yet she couldn't help but look him over. He had been so guarded with her the day before, she hadn't had the chance. Now, he was all open for her to examine.

-He was still as handsome and sexy as she remembered. His hair still short and the stubble that he had grown on his face, it made him even more attractive and his body looked more toned than she remembered. He really was a sight for her sore eyes.

-She considered waking him up, feeling like she was intruding his privacy but decided against it. He was so exposed in his sleep, she could almost feel his pain, yet she couldn't understand it. Obviously something had happened that had devastated him, he looked like something was broken inside him, and somehow, someway, she felt like it was about her. She didn't know why she felt that way, probably only wishful thinking, but she still did, she felt it deep inside of herself.

-She got carried away with her thought process and the next thing she knew he was starting to wake up. For a second, panic overwhelmed her, she had half her mind to close her eyes and pretend to still be asleep, therefore avoiding them both the awkwardness of the situation, but she wasn't fast enough.

-His eyes were opened and it took them seconds to settle on her.

-Their eyes met and both of them blushed instantly, then proceeded to look at anything but each other.

-"Hum Sorry." Lucas finally managed to utter, embarrassment at getting caught there easily noticeable in his tone. She met his eyes finally, and gave him a shy smile. He smiled back.

-"Good morning." He started again.

-"Good morning."

-"Look Peyton, about this I…, I didn't…"

-"It's okay. It feels good to know that at least one person still cares. Somehow, almost dying, I'm pretty sure it's not going to help my social life. My own daughter can't even look at me." She looked away from him, brushing away the tears.

-Lucas felt the overwhelming urge to take her into his arms once again, but he restrained himself.

-"Peyton, she'll get over it. She's angry now, but it'll pass."

-Her eyes slowly met his, he looked sincere. She gave him a sad smile. "I don't know, I've never seen her so angry. I don't think she's ever going to forgive me."

-"She will. She loves you too much not too." He reassured. It was hard seeing as Anna's anger had been as much of a surprise to him at it had been to her.

-"I don't know."

-"I do. Just give her time, be patient and you'll see."

-"Yeah, I hope so. I don't know what I'd do if she doesn't."

-"She will." He reiterated confidently. He didn't know where all this confidence was coming from, but he really wanted her to feel better and it seemed to be helping.

-She nodded and he gave her a small smile.

-"So you hungry? I think it's time for breakfast and Anna should be up."

-"Are you sure you want me to come? You said she needed time." Peyton said uncertainly. The last thing that she wanted was to make things worst, they were already bad enough as it was.

-"Yeah, but she'll have to get use to having you around too. Just don't expect too much, she can have quite the temper. Wonder where she gets that from?" He smirked at her, getting up from the floor and stretching.

-Peyton smiled. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She denied, but the smile on her face gave her away.

-"Sure you don't." Lucas rolled his eyes. The little banter was a huge relief. "Now come on." He smiled and offered her his hand to help her out of bed.

-She looked at his outstretch hand for a few seconds before smiling up at him and taking it with her own.

-He looked at their entangled hands for a second and their eyes met, they both blushed a little and then Lucas smiled, pushed the feeling out of his mind and led her out of the room.

-They walked into the living room to find Anna sitting on the floor, watching a kid show on tv.

-She smiled at Lucas and then her expression froze when her eyes landed on her mother. It was clear to both adults that she somehow wasn't expecting to see her at all. It was like she was seeing her for the first time once again.

-Her eyes went from surprised to angry again and Peyton had to fight hard not to let the tears that she could see coming fall from her eyes. Lucas saw this and tightened his hold on her hand, smiling down at her reassuringly. She bit her bottom lip, hard, and then sighed, taking control of her emotions.

-"Hi Anna." She gave her the best smile she could, hoping to see her daughter softened up a little, but sadly that didn't happen.

-The little girl shot her a angry look and then went back to watching her show.

-Lucas sighed sadly.

-"Aren't you going to say hello Ann?" He asked calmly.

-Anna looked up at him and shook her head stubbornly. Lucas was about to argue but Peyton squeezed his hand and he looked at her. She mouthed for him to let it go so he did.

-"Okay then. So do you want breakfast?" He asked the little girl.

-Anna nodded, not even giving her mother a look, before she stood up and walked in direction of the kitchen.

-Lucas and Peyton shared a look and then went after her. This was going to be a long day.


	10. Chapter 10

-Breakfast once again brought them right back to awkward. Peyton and Lucas didn't really have anything to say to each other and Anna, who could have been their common ground, the centre of interest, was apparently angry at the both of them now. She hadn't said a word to either Lucas or Peyton, though she didn't take her eyes away from Peyton once.

-This was a nice, even though a little bit creepy change, Peyton realised. Yesterday and midway through breakfast Anna had avoided looking at her, like she had the plague, but after she got up to go to the bathroom and had returned Anna had had her attention focused on her, an unreadable look on her face.

-Peyton had been a little confused about the change of attitude, but figured that Lucas must have talked to her, which he hadn't. Lucas had been as surprised by Anna's attention on Peyton as she had.

-"So, Anna, you should probably get ready for school." Lucas started after the three of them had finished breakfast.

-That was enough to make her look away from Peyton. She shot her father a look.

-"I'm not going." She decided, her eyes narrowing at him dangerously.

-"Anna…" Lucas started. He didn't really know what he was suppose to say. He thought that it would be best for her to keep as much a sense of normalcy as she could and that meant going to school, but also, he wanted her to get used to having her mother back into her life, and she couldn't do that in school. He had no idea what he was suppose to do.

-"I'm not going, you can't make me." She added stubbornly, pouting at her father.

-"Anna…"

-"Why doesn't she take a day off, just for today." Peyton tried, seeing the hesitation in Lucas.

-That brought both pair of eyes to settle on her, but whereas Lucas' were questioning, Anna's were still angry. So much for softening her up, Peyton thought sadly.

-"Hum alright," Lucas finally decided, "You can stay home, but just for today. Tomorrow you're going, no excuses." He warned.

-He didn't receive the thankful look that he was hoping for, instead Anna just looked at him blankly before going back to watching her mother, who was starting to fidget under the constant inspection.

-"Is there a problem Anna?" He asked a little taken aback by her reaction to him.

-She looked back at him and then at Peyton, before her angry eyes settled on him once again.

-"You took her side." She pointed accusingly at Peyton, who looked as surprised by the accusation as Lucas did.

-"Huh Anna, baby, I didn't take her side. There are no side. I just want all of us to be happy." He explained calmly.

-Was it possible for a six year old to sneer, because he was pretty sure that it was exactly what Anna did at that moment, she looked up at him an sneered. He knew that she was angry and probably a little lost right now, but the attitude was really going to have to go.

-"Apologize, Now." He stated more than asked.

-"No!" Anna answered, stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest.

-"You apologize, or you go sit in the corner, you choose."

-Peyton wanted to interfere, do something, but she realised that it wasn't her place, Lucas was the one being the parent and she had to stand by and watch. She hated that, she couldn't believe how much she would have wanted to be the one disciplining Anna right now. She was craving that sense of normalcy so much, it was killing her. It was weird that the part of parenting that she hated the most, discipline, was one of the things that she ached to get back the most. She wanted her life back.

-"Fine. I'm sorry okay." Anna pouted.

-"Good start, but not good enough. Why don't you think about it and try again. In the meantime, you're not leaving that seat. You hear me?"

-Anna narrowed her eyes at him but nonetheless nodded.

-"Hum, I'm going to go take a shower if that's alright." Peyton was dying to get out of there, she felt useless and she hated that.

-"Sure…"

-Peyton was halfway to the bathroom before he even finished his sentence. Lucas quickly went after her.

-"Peyton wait…"

-"What?" She answered, a little bit harder than she intended.

-Lucas was taken aback by her reaction but pushed it back quickly.

-"Are you alright?" He asked concerned.

-She looked at him for a few seconds and then.

-"No Lucas, I'm really not." And without waiting for a reaction she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Lucas sighed, threading his fingers through his hair. Why couldn't things just go smoothly for just a few hours.

-He could understand that it must have been hard for Peyton, to watch him with Anna while she just stood there, after all it was her daughter. She had been the one to take care of her until it had happened and now he had taken that from her. Peyton had lost everything and now she was scared of losing her daughter too, he could feel her pain. He had no idea what he would have done if he would have been the one going through all of this.

-He walked back to Anna who was still in her seat and sat in front of her, resting his head in his hands.

-"I'm sorry." Anna spoke, the arrogance was gone from her tone and replaced by sincerity. He looked up.

-"You're forgiven." He smiled down at her and then checked the hallway to see if Peyton was still in the bathroom.

-"Ann, sweetie, I need you to do something for me."

-"What daddy?" She asked sweetly.

-"I would really like it if you tried to be a little nicer to mommy. She loves you so much and you being angry with her, it's making her very sad. Do you think that you could do that, please?" He pleaded with her.

-"She left." She stated accusingly after a few seconds.

-"Ann, it's not like that okay. I told you before that mommy was hurt and that she couldn't come back until now."

-"Then why did everybody say she was gone forever then?" She asked angrily.

-Lucas sighed. "Because nobody knew that she was hurt. We all thought that she was too hurt to come back ever, but she wasn't. She's here now, aren't you happy about that?"

-Anna refused to meet his eyes, focusing on her hands instead.

-"Anna?" Lucas tried once more.

-"She's going to leave again."

-Her voice was so quiet and so sad, he almost hoped that he hadn't heard her right, but he had, he couldn't back away now.

-"No she won't." He stated confidently, needing that to be the truth, as much for her sake than his. He didn't know if he could handle Peyton leaving again.

-"She said that before. When I was little, she promised she was always going to be there, but she lied. She lied daddy." She cried, her eyes finally meeting his.

-As he was about to say something, anything to help Anna, he saw a flash of blonde hair in the corner of his eye and turned to find Peyton, just exiting the bathroom, tears in her eyes. The two of them silently stared at each other. Lucas was trying to see if she wanted to jump in into the conversation while Peyton seemed simply unable to move, rooted to the spot.

-Anna noticed that her father wasn't looking at her anymore and turned to see what he was looking at. Lucas expected some kind of angry retort, or at least look, but he saw none. Anna's eyes found her mother's and then she quickly averted her gaze once more. She brushed away tears from her eyes and then went back to looking down at the table.

-She didn't look angry anymore, just sad, exactly like her mom. Both Sawyers had identical pain-filled expressions on their faces and Lucas was once again caught in the middle, not knowing what to do.

-The three of them were torn out of their trance when the phone rang. Lucas sent Peyton a worried look as she moved to join them in the kitchen and he answered the phone.

-"Hello." He said distractedly.

-"Is it true?" The distraught voice on the other end asked.

-"Brooke! Are you okay? What's wrong?" He asked worryingly.

-"Is it true?" She cried once again.

-"Is what true, Brooke?" He asked again, noticing that both Peyton and Anna were looking at him nervously.

-"On… On the news they're saying that… Is it true Luke?" She kept asking the same thing and he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he wasn't going to like whatever she was going to tell him next.

-"What are you talking about Brooke?" He tried to stay calm, she was starting to freak him out.

-"Just put on the news. It's everywhere." She paused. "Please tell me it's true, you'd know."

-"Okay. Just a minute."

-He took the phone and walked to the living room, both girls in tow, and turned on the tv. He had to switch channel because Anna had been watching her shows, but as soon as he did, his heart stopped.

-There was a picture of Peyton, the words 'Plane crash survivor resurfaces' in bright yellow at the bottom of the screen.

-"Oh God!"

-It was his thought but not his voice.


	11. Chapter 11

-He feels like he's having an out of body experience. He's barely conscious that he mumbles something to Brooke and then hangs up, not really knowing what he's suppose to say. He turns to Peyton and realises that she looks like she has just seen a ghost. He wonders if this is what he looked like when he saw her for the first time the day before. She's sitting on the couch and staring at the screen with that terrified look on her face, God, he always hated that look.

-He then turns to Anna who is watching the same screen with a completely different look. She keeps looking from the tv to her mother and back like she's trying to figure out if it's the same person. He wants to turn it off but the remote isn't in his hand anymore. He looks frantically for it and ultimately finds it on the floor, he must have dropped it, he just has no idea when.

-Peyton isn't looking at him or at Anna, even as he turns the tv off, her eyes remain fixed on the screen for the longest time until she just drops her head in her hands.

-"Peyton…" Lucas tries, but truth is, he has no idea what to say, what to do to make this better.

-She doesn't answer him immediately and he thinks that she might not have heard him but then she speaks.

-"They weren't suppose to say anything."

-"Peyton…" It's useless, he's still speechless.

-"They told me that they were going to wait. Now everybody knows." She looks up at him and her eyes are once again full of tears.

-"Peyton…"

-"I'm going to go, I need to be alone." She's not looking at him, or at anything else for that matter. She just gets up and is about to leave when something stops her.

-Anna who had been watching everything, took off and placed herself right in front of her mother.

-"No!" That makes Peyton stop and both adults look at the little girl with shocked expressions on their faces.

-"Daddy said you weren't going to leave again, he promised." She narrows her eyes at her mother and then at her father.

-Peyton looks shell-shocked at being addressed directly by the little girl and it takes her a while to answer.

-"I'm not leaving, I'm just going to take a nap for a little while. I'm never going to leave you again. Right now mommy just needs to…"

-"Think?" The little girl finishes quietly and Peyton smiles, the truest smile she'd smile since the crash.

-Before this whole mess started, when it was only the two of them, they had come up with a code. Since they were both so similar they had realised that they both sometime needed to be left alone, so they had developed a code. When one of them wanted to be left alone, she'd say they she needed to think. Peyton hadn't used it often, but Anna loved it, she'd use it when she was angry or sad or simply when she wanted to draw or play on her own. For Anna to use that word now, it meant more to Peyton then she could have ever realise.

-"Yeah." She finally answers the little girl. "Is that okay?"

-Anna looks at Lucas who has no idea what is going on and then back at her mother and nods.

-Peyton's reflex is to hug the girl, but when she takes a step forward and the little girl takes one back, she bites down on her bottom lip to try to control the pain brought on by the gesture and then without a word starts walking toward her room, well Lucas' room.

-"Don't leave." She stops dead in her track and turns to look at her daughter. She musters a small smile, the biggest she could in the circumstances.

-"Never again." She adds before continuing toward the room.

-The room is silent for the longest time as Lucas sits on the couch and buries his face in his hands exactly like Peyton had done a few minutes ago. Things were starting to look up and then this happens. Peyton really didn't need for people to find out about what had happened to her like that, not on top of everything that she had been going through, it wasn't fair.

-He's frustrated too. There is so much distance between him and Peyton now. Before, he would have been able to comfort her. He could have made her feel better with just a few words, but now, he hadn't been able to do anything, he hadn't been able to come up with anything constructive to help and he hated that.

-He knew that part of the distance was his fault. He was so guarded now and he couldn't expect Peyton to open up to him, to let him in, if he didn't do the same thing with her. This was one of the things that he had realised last night while watching her sleep, that if he wanted to fix things and get his life back he was going to have to open up to her, the two of them were going to need to have a real conversation and put everything on the table otherwise, the distance would always remain.

-But knowing what he was suppose to do, it didn't make doing it any easier. He had been so closed up for so long, he didn't know what would happen when he finally let everything out. The last time he had express anything personal was last Christmas, and well, let's just say, he really didn't want a repeat of that. All he remembered from that night was the waved of pain that had flushed through him. Letting things out meant pain, that was what he feared. He had been trying to close himself off to the pain for so long, he didn't know if he could gather enough courage to let it out.

-On the other hand though, Peyton was going through hell. She was hurting and yet she was still putting herself out there, well with Anna at least. She had been through so much and yet she was still here, she was still fighting. He couldn't give up on her, not when faced with the fact that the last time he had let her go, he had almost lost her forever. He was going to have to stop being such a wuss and gather the courage to try to fix things with Peyton, put everything out in the open. He didn't know when that was going to be because right now they needed to help Anna deal with everything but soon he promised himself.

-"Daddy, why was mommy on tv?" The little girl's voice tore him out of his thoughts and he looked back at her confused. He had no idea what she had just said, he had only heard the end.

-"You're sad too daddy?" Anna asked upon seeing his face and the tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

-He touched his cheeks and realised that he had been crying. How could he not have known that he was crying, he must have been really distracted because he hadn't notice, like he didn't notice that Anna was speaking again until he saw her wave a hand in front of his face.

-"Daddy?" She asked worryingly.

-"I'm fine Anna. What do you want to know?" He asked, brushing the remnant of tears from his face.

-"Why was mommy on the tv?" She asked again.

-Lucas hesitated, he hadn't really listened to what was said but he figured they were talking about the crash. He was about to answer when they both heard the doorbell.

-He sighed and took Anna into his arms, he had a pretty good idea of who it was going to be. She had never been a fan of getting hung up on.

-He was right, he looked in the peephole to find Brooke with what looked like an expression somewhere between pissed off, confused, and shocked on her face. He sighed again and opened the door.

-Brooke saw the expression on his face, the pain in his eyes and the remnant of tears on his cheeks and tears started to form in her eyes too.

-"It's true isn't it, she's alive?" She looked up at Lucas and all he could do was nod, bringing Anna closer to his body as he did.

-She took that in before speaking again.

-"Where is she?" Her voice shook as she asked but Lucas heard her perfectly clear, he just didn't know what to say.

-"I'm sure you know. You have her daughter for God's sake, you'd be the first to know."

-She looks up at him again and then at Anna, realization dawning on her face.

-"She's here isn't she?"

-When Lucas still didn't say anything she continued.

-"Don't stand there and pretend not to know what I'm talking about. If it's true and she really is alive, the first place that she would have gone to was here, for Anna, and you already said it's true so…"

-Finally, Lucas was able to form sentences again and spoke.

-"Brooke, I… Look, yeah she's here, but she's having a pretty rough time right now and I just don't think that…"

-He didn't even get to finish his sentence, Brooke had moved quickly passed him and into the apartment. Lucas closed the door in a hurry and went after her, catching up to her in the kitchen.

-"Brooke…"

-"I need to see her Luke. I need to know what the hell is going on." Tears were still burning in her eyes and Lucas hesitated.

-"She's having a hard time talking about it Brooke. It was hard enough for her to tell me, I just don't know if she's ready to tell it over and over again."

-Brooke looked around the room, it was clear that she was looking for her friend but when she didn't see anything, she looked back at Lucas.

-"Then tell me."

-"What?"

-"You just said she told you, so tell me."

-"Brooke…" He didn't know if he could, if he was strong enough to talk about it, hell, he could barely think about it.

-"Luke please, I need to know." She pleaded.

-"Fine, I'll try." He conceded, sitting himself down on one of the chairs, Anna on his lap. The little girl had no idea what was going on, but still listened up to him carefully.

-When he finished telling the story of what had happened to Peyton in the last year, he felt drained. He had to pause numerous times because at some points, it was just too hard to talk about it; but he still managed to tell her the basics: explosion, jumps, parachutes, hospital, coma, surgery, amnesia. It would have been so much easier if he could have just said it like that, but forming sentences, talking about it knowing that it had all happened to Peyton, it made it look so much worst, not that it wasn't bad enough already.

-When he looked up when he was done; he had kept his eyes on the floor all this time, he saw that Brooke was crying and that Anna was completely confused. Tears were rolling down her face too but you could see that she was trying to figure out how that fit with what she knew.

-Lucas felt horrible, he hadn't really ever told Anna about the plane, he had figured that knowing that she was never coming back was enough for the little girl to have to deal with, but now, as he looked at her, he realised that he should have told her about it sooner. Maybe it would have made things easier.

-He was torn out of his thoughts by Brooke, who spoke for the first time since he had started talking.

-"I want to see her Luke."


	12. Chapter 12

A.N.: Sorry for the delay in updating, school has started again and it's been hectic. Hopefully things should settle down a little soon and I should be able to post more regularly. In the meantime, sorry for the delay and I hope you guys enjoy the update.

* * *

-It had taken a while but Lucas had finally allowed her to go see Peyton. Sure she had to promise not to push and to give Peyton space if she needed it but at least that was something.

-It was weird, the closer she got to the door, the more nervous she became. She had never really been nervous around Peyton, the two of them had been friend for so long, they were like sisters, but now, they hadn't seen each other for years, it wasn't the same anymore and that was getting more and more obvious the closer she got to the door.

-She managed to open the door slightly after taking a deep breath, taking a look inside.

-It took a few seconds before Peyton noticed her. During those few seconds, she got a good look at her old friend.

-Peyton was laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and the first thing that came to her was how sad she looked. Brooke had seen her best friend through all kind of sad events, but never before had Peyton look so sad, so discouraged, it was like something was missing.

-Finally, Peyton turned around and saw her, she froze.

-The two of them stayed rooted to their spot, silently staring at each other and Peyton had the distinct expression that Brooke was about to pass out too, exactly like Lucas had done the day before, but at last, Brooke caught herself.

-"Hi." She uttered.

-She was completely taken aback by the sight. That day was just getting worst every minute wasn't it. First, Anna being angry with her, then everybody finding out about her from the news, and now Brooke being here. Maybe she shouldn't have woken up this morning, she would have been way better staying in bed.

-She pushed all emotions to the back of her mind.

-"Brooke." She croaked.

-"Oh my god." And before she could do anything, Brooke had launched herself at her, wrapping her arms around her old friend tightly.

-Peyton didn't move, didn't return the gesture for a long time, that is until she couldn't hold it anymore and desperately hugged her back. Memories of all the good times she had had with her friend through the years floating through her mind.

-It was minutes, maybe hours before the two of them separated, both with tears flowing down each of their faces.

-"Don't ever do that again." The words were meant as a warning but her broken up tone and the tears rolling down her face told a different story.

-"Do what?" Peyton put some space between the two of them by standing up from the bed.

-"Scare me like that again. We all thought you were dead P. Sawyer." Brooke brushed away some of her tears.

-"Yeah maybe things would have been better that way." She muttered it under her breath but apparently it had still been loud enough.

-"What?" All trace of happiness or tears were gone from her voice and Peyton was taken aback by the hostility that had now replaced it.

"What'd do say?" Brooke repeated it again, this time almost yelling.

-"You heard me." Peyton snapped back. For two days now she had taken everything without a word, Lucas' detachment, Anna's anger, everything, but now she was going to be damned if she took this from Brooke too. Hell, the two of them hadn't been in each other's for even longer than her and Lucas had been apart, why the hell did she think that she was allowed to be angry with her.

-"What the hell is wrong with you?"

-"Brooke…Leave me alone."

-"No. I've left you alone long enough. You're not going to get rid of me this time. You better explain what the hell you meant by that.." Brooke wasn't backing down.

-"Why the hell do you care? You have everything; my daughter, Lucas. I thought you'd be happier with me gone."

-"Are you crazy?" She wasn't angry anymore, more shocked. She couldn't understand how Peyton could think that.

-Peyton turned away from Brooke, walking to stand by the window, looking out at the town.

-"Peyton! You can't mean that, you can't mean that you would have rather died." Brooke asked her incredulous, walking toward her.

-"Peyton!!!!!!" Brooke was done waiting for her friend to open up and grabbed her arm, forcing the blonde to face her.

-"Brooke just let it go okay." Peyton wouldn't look at her, training her eyes on the floor.

-"Sorry Blondie, not going to happen. We were all so sad when we thought you were dead, there's no way I'm just going to stand here and let you say that you rather it really did happen."

-"Brooke you have my life now. They have you, why would they need me?"

-"Are you talking about Anna and Luke, because if you do than I think that you really need to get your head checked up again, that's crazy."

-"Why? My daughter hates me and loves you and well Lucas… I don't even know what to say about Lucas, it's like he doesn't even care at all whether I'm dead or alive. The way I see it, they have you why would they want me."

-"P. Sawyer you're crazy. I love Anna, the little girl is an angel but there's no way I could replace you in her heart and well when it comes to Lucas, even if I wanted a shot with him, there would be no way. Lucas' whole focus is Anna now and believe me when I say this, he's very conscious of your existence."

-"Brooke..."

-"No! You hear me and you hear me good. Anna loves you, there's no way she could ever hate you. She's probably just in shock right now and she's lashing out simply because she's hurt."

-"She's not lashing out Brooke, she's ignoring me, she barely acknowledges my presence. Why would she do that?" The desperation in her voice was heartbreaking.

-"Oh come on Blondie. The first thing I learned about the girl is that she's like a mini you. She's been through hell this last year, it's only normal that she would be cautious about having you in her life again. Think about it, how would you have felt if suddenly you found out that your mom was back from the dead?"

-"Oh! I don't know okay. I guess I just thought that she'd be happy to see me, that she would have missed me, but she's happy here. She doesn't need me anymore." She finished sadly, the statement tearing at her heart.

-"Oh stop with the self-pity. You could have died. You almost lost your life AND your daughter. Now you have a second chance. You have a chance to have everything you always wanted. You can change things, all you have to do is hang in there and wait for things to settle down. Give her time Blondie, Anna's going to come around and you and broody can have your happily ever after." Brooke smiled coyly as the blonde blushed.

-"What makes you think I even want to get back together with Lucas?"

-"Oh come on P. Sawyer. I was stuck in that creepy triangle long enough to know that you'll always want to be with Lucas and beside, you left him your daughter for god's sake. She's the most important thing in your life and you leave her to him, that says everything. I'm smarter than I look you know."

-Peyton rolled her eyes at that and smiled.

-"I missed you." Tears were rolling down her face again. Brooke putting things in perspective for her had been one of the things that she had missed the most about her friend.

-"Me too P. Sawyer. You have no idea." Brooke moved in and hugged her friend again.

This time Peyton returned the hug without any hesitation.

-When they pulled back some time later, Brooke wiped the tears off of her friend's face and than from her own.

-"So come on P. Sawyer, we have to start planning."

-"Planning what?" Peyton hadn't been in Brooke's presence for years and needed to readjust to her scheming, it had been a while.

-"Getting your life back of course. We're going to need to find a way to get that mini you to melt the ice front and then we're going to need to snap Lucas from this stupid phase he's in. We need a plan but don't worry I'm on this."

-"Somehow, that's not reassuring me." Peyton answered nervously, but nonetheless with a smile on her face. It was nice to have someone finally treat her like her old self and not like a stranger, someone that needed to be approached with caution. It was refreshing.

-"Okay, let's do this." Brooke was all smile now, somehow scheming had always been something that put her in a good mood.

-"Brooke I don't know I mean…" Peyton was still hesitating though, she didn't know if she was strong enough to keep fighting.

-"Come on Blondie this is going to be so much fun." Brooke said enthusiastically, grabbing her friend into a hug.

-"Yeah somehow I doubt that."


	13. Chapter 13

-Brooke had been with Peyton for almost half an hour now and during that time, Anna hadn't said a single word. Lucas was now convinced that to have her hear what he told Brooke about what had happened to her mother had probably been a horrible idea.

-At first, he had thought that maybe it would help, that it would make her realise that Peyton hadn't left her voluntarily but all it seemed to have done was scare her even more. Add to that that the phone kept ringing and that he refused to answer it, it had been a very hectic half an hour.

-He kept glancing repeatedly toward his bedroom door almost expecting Peyton to run out at any moment but it wasn't happening. Whatever they were doing in there, they seemed to be getting along.

-Lucas turned to his daughter.

-"Anna sweetie, talk to me."

-She looked up at him blankly from her spot on the opposite side of the couch for a few seconds.

-"I want to go to my room."

-He saw from the expression in her eyes that her mind was set and that he wasn't going to get anything out of her right now so he nodded.

-"Alright." He agreed and with a sad smile in his direction, Anna left the room promptly.

-Lucas laid down on the couch, looking at the ceiling, feeling so many thing he couldn't identified them all.

-As he laid there images started to invade his mind and he couldn't stay there anymore, if he did he was going to break down again, so he got up quickly, deciding that he really needed something to do. An idea flashed in his mind and he walked toward his bedroom.

-Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door.

It took about a minute and he knows that because he counted. It was that or get the hell out of there before the door even opened. He couldn't understand why he was so nervous around her, he hadn't been that scared to be around her since before his junior year of high school yet the feeling felt completely new.

-Finally, the door opened and he was floored, Peyton was smiling, really smiling, not the uncomfortable or sad smile he'd gotten but a real smile, one of those smiles that used to make his heart soar.

-He couldn't talk or even think for that matter. Her eyes, they were sparkling, and that look, the look in her eyes right now, brought back so many memories he panicked. He couldn't do this, he couldn't be here, feel like this.

-"Huh Sorry, I…" He couldn't even finish his sentence, he needed to get those images out of his head before he went crazy. He couldn't let those feelings out, not now, not when he could barely keep his head above the water as it was. Without saying another word or looking at her the slightest he just took off, he left the doorway for the protection of his office leaving a very confused Peyton behind.

-"Huh okay, what was that about?" Brooke appeared beside Peyton who was looking in the direction where Lucas had disappeared to with a confused expression still on her face.

-"I don't know."

-"Okay P. Sawyer, loose the lost puppy look and let's get back to the plan."

-"Brooke I don't know, something seems wrong maybe I…"

-"Okay what about I go check up on him." Brooke suggested after seeing that Peyton's worried expression wasn't going away.

-"You would do that?"

-"To stop the brooding, anything. So what about this? You stay here and try to put a smile on your face and I'll go check on Luke and Anna."

-"Oh my god, you think that maybe something's wrong with Anna?"

-"Oh relax P. I'm sure that Anna's fine. Relax, I'll be right back." And with that Brooke left the room, but not before rolling her eyes at the two blondes' broodiness.

-She walked into Anna's room first and saw that the child was laying on her bed crying. She sighed, she hated that the little girl was going through so much, it wasn't fair. Carefully, she walked closer to her and sat on the bed beside the little blonde girl.

-"Hey kiddo! What's wrong?"

-Anna turned around, looked at her and then threw herself in the brunette's arms and Brooke hugged her back, caressing her hair tenderly.

-Anna cried for some time and when she calmed down some time later, Brooke tried to get her to open up again.

-"Wanna tell me what happened?"

-"My mommy's back." She said barely above a whisper.

-"I know, it's great isn't it?" Anna didn't say anything so Brooke kept going.

-"I thought you'd be happy that your mommy's back. I am."

-"She left." The little girl argued stubbornly.

-"Anna…"

-"I'm angry."

-"I gathered that but you know what sweetie, anger it's not a good emotion. All it does is eat at you from the inside."

-"Why?"

-"Why what kiddo?"

-"Why is anger bad?"

-"Because it stops you from feeling the other things, the good things. You see, the more energy you spend being angry, the lesser you have to spend on being happy and grateful for all the good things that do happen to you. See, now you're angry a lot at your mommy for leaving and because of that you forget to be thankful that she's back. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

-The little girl nodded slowly.

-"But how can I not be angry anymore Brooke?"

-"There's no definitive answer to that honey but I think that you need to let your mommy know exactly how I feel. If you're angry, then by angry with her. At some point you wont have any anger left and you wont be angry anymore."

-"You want me to yell at mommy?"

-"All I'm saying is that keeping things inside is not good, think about it okay?"

-"Okay."

-"Brooke. Are you and my mommy friends again?"

-"Yeah kiddo. I missed your mommy so much and I'm very happy that she's here now."

-"Does this mean we're not friends anymore?" She looked up at her worryingly.

-"Of course not kiddo. You and I are going to be friends forever, I promise you that."

-"Thanks Brooke."

-"Think about it kiddo. Your mommy loves you very much."

-"I love you Brooke."

-"I love you too kiddo. I'll see you later."

-Brooke kissed the little girl's forehead and then exited the room, hoping to God that she had gotten through the stubborn little girl.

-"Here goes the next one." She said to herself before she entered the office.

-Nothing could have prepared for what she saw in there, Lucas was a mess. He was sprawled on his office chair with an open bottle of Whiskey.

-"Hey Brooke! Want a drink?" He spluttered and Brooke sighed. She had never seen Lucas being such a mess before. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen him drunk, but she figured it was a long time coming.

-Lucas had kept all the pain bottled up for so long it was bound to come out eventually. Brooke figured that something must have brought those feelings out and Lucas had decided not to deal with it.

-"No, I'd rather not and you shouldn't either. Anna's in the next room Luke."

-That seemed to register with him because when he looked back at her, he looked guilty and remorseful.

-"Sorry." He spoke drunkenly and Brooke realised that it was too late, Lucas was already drunk.

-"Huh Luke, why don't you sleep it off. We'll talk about it later."

-"Or not."

-"Luke…"

-"I'm going to go talk to Peyton." He decided and Brooke would have almost laughed had not the situation been so pathetic. According to Peyton, Lucas avoided her like the plague and now that he was drunk, he wanted to talk to her. "Yeah, that was going to go well." She thought sarcastically.

-"Luke, that's not a good idea. You might want to wait till you stop stuttering."

-"No, I want to talk to her now." He decided, clumsily getting himself off of the chair and toward her.

-Brooke had to half support him as he swayed in front of her.

-"Luke, you're going to sleep this off."

-"Peyton! Hi!"

-Apparently, Peyton had decided to step out of her room and that fact had no gone unnoticed by the drunken Lucas.

-He moved out of Brooke's supportive arms and toward Peyton who had to quickly take a few steps forward to stop him from falling on his face, wrapping one arm around his waist.

-"What's going on?" She asked Brooke.

-"Don't ask me, I have no idea. It's all Drunky's idea."

-"I'm not drunk." He spluttered. "Your hair smells good." He told Peyton, his face buried in her hair and Peyton had to take a deep breath to keep her emotions in check.

-"Yeah. Not drunk at all." Brooke rolled her eyes

-"I… I want to talk." Lucas tried again, looking at Peyton who looked back at him worryingly.

-"That was going to be a disaster." Brooke thought as she looked at the two adults.


	14. Chapter 14

-"Why are you drinking Lucas?" Peyton asked confused, trying with everything she had not to notice too much Lucas' arm around her waist and his breath on her neck.

-"I'm not drinking, I'm not, not anymore."

-"But why did you start in the first place?" She pressed on.

-"Lucas?" Brooke joined in, wanting the know the answer almost as much as Peyton did.

-"You smiled." He spoke, not looking at either of them.

-"You decided to get drunk because Peyton smiled, yeah that makes complete sense." Brooke smirked, these two needed serious therapy.

-"Shut up Brooke." Lucas shot back.

-"Actually if I shut up that's going to be a very quiet conversation seeing as your drunk and she's in this weird brooding, confused phase. So, really, you two totally need me."

-"That's so nice of you Brooke." Peyton answered sarcastically. "I have no idea what we'd do without you."

-"You're funny." Lucas babbled, his mouth really close to her ear.

-"If you think she's funny you're drunker than I thought."

-"Hey!"

-"Oh come Peyt, you're a lot of things, but funny isn't one of them. You're broody not funny, that's a fact."

-"So, Lucas what is it you want to talk about?" Peyton moved to prove Brooke wrong, engaging her own conversation with Lucas even though her heart was beating a mile a minute.

Lucas looked completely taken aback for a few seconds but lucky for him they were interrupted by the ringing of the phone and Lucas sighed.

-"Can't they just leave me alone? She's alive, get over it." He mumbled to himself, unaware that the other two heard him until he heard Brooke speak.

-"Maybe you should follow your own advice."

-"What's that suppose to mean.?" He swirled around still shaky from the alcohol, facing Brooke, a menacing look on his face.

-"Oh come on Luke, you're the poster child for denial, you're even given blondie here a run for her money."

-"Brooke…"

-"Ever since you learned about the crash, you've put your life on life support. It's admirable the way you've been taking care of Anna, but you haven't been living. You stand there and pretend that everything's fine, but you're not and everyone knows it. The only reason no one has said anything is because the last time they tried you had this huge breakdown."

-"I'm fine Brooke."

-"Never heard that one before." Brooke said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at drunk Lucas who was still holding onto Peyton for support while doing everything he could not to look at her directly.

-"Brooke maybe you should leave us to talk." Peyton cut in awkwardly. She wanted to know what Brooke meant about Lucas having a breakdown but now was not the time, beside Lucas was drunk and she needed to deal with that first.

-The phone rang once again and before Lucas made a comment, Brooke jumped in.

-"What about I take that while you two continue to act like lovesick 10 year olds. It makes me want to gag anyway." She laughed at their blushing faces before walking away in the other room to answer the phone.

-"So, what's up?" Peyton spoke distractingly. Lucas had finally mastered the ability to stand on his own so she had to turn to face him.

* * *

-"Hello." Brooke spoke, putting the phone to her ear.

-"Brooke! What are you doing at Lucas'?" It was Haley and from the tone of her voice she was very surprised to find Brooke answering Lucas' phone.

-"I showed up earlier, needed some answers. Which is exactly why you're calling I guess."

-"Is it true Brooke? Is Peyton alive?" She asked, her voice showing a mixture of hope and apprehension.

-"Yeah, it's all true. She's here, she showed up yesterday, she's staying at Lucas'." She couldn't keep the smile from her face, she was so happy to have her friend back.

-"How? How is that possible Brooke? There was a crash and…" She couldn't finish that sentence and Brooke knew exactly why. It was still very hard for them to talk about that.

-"She survived the crash, she was in the hospital for months, amnesia and all. She only remembered everything a week ago or so."

-"Oh my God! I can't believe it."

-"Yeah, I know."

-"How are Luke and Anna taking it?"

-Brooke sighed.

-"Not so well. Anna's angry, she's barely said a word to Peyton since yesterday and Lucas' been avoiding her, well except for just now, but he's drunk so I don't think that counts."

-"Lucas' drinking? In the middle of the day?"

-"I know. It's not good. Lucas' a mess, Peyton's a mess. It's a huge party over here."

-"I'll tell Karen, we'll be there as soon as possible."

-"Look Hales, I don't think it's such a good idea. Anna's having trouble dealing and so does Peyton and well Lucas, who the hell knows what goes on in his head. I just don't think it's a good idea.."

-"So what? You're there but we can't come."

-"Hales…" She tried to explain but it was too late, Haley had already hung up the phone.

-"Great. That's just great. Exactly what we needed." She mumbled under her breath, laying down the phone back in it's cradle, just in time to hear a door slammed.

-"What now?" She asked herself exasperated, walking back to Lucas' office to see him standing there looking guilty.

-"Lucas, what's going on?"

-"Apparently I have anger issues. Peyton's pissed with me."

-"What happened?" She asked concerned for both of her friends and putting real efforts in not mentioning that she had totally seen that one coming.

-Flashback

_-"Lucas, what did you want to talk to me about?" Keep your mind on that and only that matter. It was what she kept telling herself as she saw Lucas risk a glance at her before going back to looking at the floor. Really, that awkwardness was killing her, there never used to have that between her and Lucas and now, it was like they were drowning in it._

_-"I, I wanted to know if you wanted to go get your stuff today, that's all, but you're having fun with Brooke we can go later." Yeah that was great, babble like an incoherent teenager, that's going to help you win points. He chastised himself. He couldn;t understand how suddenly he couldn't form coherent thoughts in his head, it was all foggy._

_-"Oh! Huh sure, I'd like that. So is that all you wanted to say?"_

_-"Huh yeah."_

_-"Okay." She knew that there was more, she could see it in his eyes, but she couldn't find the courage to press on. Right now, getting out of there was her number one priority._

_-She started walking back to her room when Lucas stopped her._

_-"Anna and I are similar a lot you know." He didn't know why he was speaking, hell he hadn't even thought about what he wanted to say, there was no way he wasn't going to screw this up._

_-"What?" She turned, facing him with a perplexed expression on her face._

_-"I hate it that ever since you came back all I can think about is the fact that you're only going to leave again. Why the hell should I make an effort Peyt? It's not like it'd going to change anything. You're still going to leave as soon as you have the chance, it's your M.O." _

_-He couldn't control the anger and acidity of his voice and part of him didn't want to. He had been holding that in for so long, it was time that she knew what he had been feeling all this time. _

_-It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see her, hell his dreams never had endings that good, but still there was that nagging in the back of his mind, this voice telling him that the only reason she was there was Anna and that she was going to leave again as soon as she could. He couldn't get rid of that thought and it was driving him crazy._

_-She looked at him confused for a few seconds and he instantly knew that he had said something wrong when her expression changed quickly. She looked like she had just been slapped in the face._

_-"What the hell are you talking about? You're older than Anna you know? If you can't understand that I almost died in that crash than …"_

_-"It's not what I'm talking about Peyton. You leave, it's what you do. You left after high school for that internship and then you came back only to leave for good a year later. Face it Peyton, it's what you do. You get bored with us and then you shamble everything around, walking away like it means nothing to you, so forgive me if I'm not going to let myself fall for that again."_

_-She didn't look shocked anymore, just pissed._

_-"It's not like that and you know it. You're the one that made me go to the internship and you're the one that told me that I needed to go back. Don't change history only because it makes you feel better. You told me to go Luke, it's not just on me."_

_-"Yeah, and what was I suppose to do Peyt, tell you not to go, stop you from living your dream. You would have been miserable and you would have blamed me for it. No thank you."_

_-"Yeah Luke, it's all my fault, sorry I forgot. You're just the poor guy who got screwed by a heartless bitch."_

_-"You said it." He mumbled it but she still heard him._

_-"Screw you Lucas." And with that she was gone, slamming the door after her._

-End Flashback

-"You really are an ass you know that?" Brooke rolled her eyes. "You've been miserable without her for years now and when you finally get a chance to possibly get her back you do everything you can to screw it up. Yeah great job Luke, really I'm impressed."

-"I didn't mean to say all of those things Brooke, it just came out."

-"Yeah, how great is it that today's the day you decide to finally talk about your feelings." She said sarcastically. These two really liked to complicate things, it wasn't even funny anymore.

-"I know okay. So what am I suppose to do now?" Sure it had felt good at the time to tell her all these things, to finally let her have it, but he was just realising now that his timing was horrible. Peyton was going through hell, the last thing she needed was for him to discharge all his pent up anger on her, but he hadn't been able to help it, she had hurt him and he wanted her to know it, he didn't care how it had made her feel on top of eveything else and now he was feeling like an idiot. He was even more confused than he had been before.

-"Do I have to do everything? Go talk to her idiot."

-"Yeah, maybe later."

-"Luke…" She tried but it was too late, Lucas had already dissapeared in his office closing the door behind him.

-"Just Great." She mumbled to herserlf, walking toward Anna's. She had had enough drama for now and beside it was probably better to let the two of them brood for a while, maybe they'd be more reasonable later.


	15. Chapter 15

-"Hey kiddo! Can I come in?" Brooke walked into Anna's room carefully, not knowing the mood the little girl was in, certainly not after her encounter with her very moody parents.

-"Huh huh!" The little girl nodded and Brooke walked in, closing the door behind her.

-"So how are you kiddo?" She sat on the side of the bed, placing a lock of curly hair behind the blonde's ear.

-"My mommy and my daddy they were yelling." She was not looking at her but rather out the window, the subject obviously puzzling to her.

-"I know. Everything will be okay though kiddo, I promise."

-"My mommy, she never yelled before, she never said bad words either."

-"I know babe, but they are both going through a lot right now. Everything will settle down. Don't worry."

-"Is my mommy angry at me too, like she's angry at daddy?" She turned to look at her at that and Brooke thought that she was going to cry, she looked so sad, so conflicted about everything that was going on. Brooke really felt bad for her.

-"Hey!Of course not, but why would you think that babe?"

-"Daddy, he yelled at her because she left and I'm angry that she left too."

-"And she understands that. Your mommy's not angry with you babe. Her and Lucas just have a very long and complicated story but they'll figure it out. Don't worry about it."

-"My mommy, she didn't talk about daddy much before, all she said was that he was her prince. Were they in love, before she met my real daddy I mean?"

-Brooke stared flabbergasted for a few seconds. Never in a million years would she have guessed that at some point someone was going to ask her to talk about the tragic love of Peyton and Lucas. It was very ironic.

-"Yeah, they were in love." It was making her uncomfortable to talk about it but it was not like she could say no to the girl, she was way too adorable, add to that that silent tears were still running down her face, she really didn't have a choice.

-"But then why didn't they live happily ever after. Why isn't Lucas my real daddy then?"

-"Because hum," she considered it for a few seconds. "You remember the movie we saw last week?"

-"The one where the prince was always too late and he kept missing the princess and then at the end he wasn't too late anymore and he found her?"

-"Yup that one. Your mommy and your daddy, they're kind of like that. They've always loved each other but they've always had problems being at the same place at the same time you know? One of them is always ahead of the other."

-"But then why doesn't one of them wait for the other?"

-"Because obviously neither of them is as smart as you are kiddo." Brooke smiled, ruffling the little girl's hair affectionately. Everything would be so much simpler if they could just follow the six year old' advice and stop with the stupid games.

-Anna was about to speak again when there was a knock on the door and Peyton walked in.

-She was obviously nervous and it was evident that she had been crying.

-"Hum hi! I'm going to go for a little while. Would you mind staying?" She looked at Brooke who nodded.

-"Okay, I'm going to go then." With a small smile to Anna she was gone again.

-Brooke looked down to the little girl and right away knew that something was wrong. Tears had welled up in her eyes again and before Brooke could say a single word, Anna had burst out through the door and Brooke was left to run after her, completely confused as to what just happened.

* * *

-She needed out of here, it was like she was suffocating. It wasn't enough that she had to deal with the fact that her daughter couldn't even look at her and that everybody in the world now knew about her screwed up year, now she had to deal with Lucas blowing up at her too. Clearly staying here hadn't been the best idea, but there was not much that she could do about that now. Right now all she could do was find a way to clear up her head and she had decided that she needed to get out of there to do that.

-She needed some air and she needed some clothes too so she decided to go and do that. She was a few steps from the door when in a flash of blonde hair, Anna appeared between her and the door, blocking her way out.

-"NO!" The little girl yelled, a horrified look on her face.

-"Anna! What's wrong?" She had to overcome the surprise at hearing her daughter actually talk to her as well as the fact that tears were rolling down her face before she could formulate the actual question. It was weird to feel so distant with her own daughter, the two of them had always been so close.

-It had been just the two of them for so long, Anna was the most important thing in her life and she in hers. Now she had to deal with the fact that Anna had Lucas now, she didn't need her as much, and moreso, right now, she didn't even want her and that was breaking her heart.

-"I won't be angry with you anymore, I won't be mean. Don't leave. You promised you wouldn't leave. You promised." She cried just as Lucas, who had heard the little girl's cry, came out of his office and appeared behind them to stand with Brooke, a worried look on his face.

-Peyton bent down to her level being careful not to touch her. Anna had had a pretty bad reaction the last time she had tried to touch her, so she wasn't going to risk having her daughter be more upset with her than she already was.

-"I'm not leaving, I'm just going out for a little while. I'm not going to leave again baby, I promise."

-Anna wouldn't meet her eyes. She was still crying as she focused her eyes on her shoes.

-"Anna?"

-"You promised before too. You said it was just for one night and you never came back." This time she looked up at her as she laid down her accusation, the anger in her voice easily discernible and Peyton had to fight with all she had not to break down right then.

-"I'm sorry about that baby but I never meant for that to happen and if I could, I would have come back right away you know that."

-"Daddy said you were going to leave again, I heard him before when you were yelling. He said you were going to leave soon."

-If looks could kill, the one that Peyton shot Lucas would have ended him within seconds. She couldn't believe that Anna had heard that and if she hadn't been feeling bad about hashing it up with Lucas in the middle of the hallway before, she definitely did now and from the apologetic look that he sent her, so did he.

-Lucas hated that what he had said to Peyton had somehow played a part in Anna's fears of abandonment. It was never what he had wanted, he might have issues to resolve with Peyton but it didn't mean that he wanted for Anna to stay angry. He decide to jump in, try to solve this whole mess before it got even worst.

-"Ann, when your mommy and I were fighting we both said things. You weren't suppose to hear them and I'm sorry. What I said, I was talking about me sweetie, not you. Your mommy would never leave you again I promise."

-"But daddy, you said that mommy always leaves. You said it."

-"Anna…" Peyton tried but nothing came out. She had no idea how to explain to her daughter the situation with her and Lucas. Luckily, Lucas jumped in again.

-"Ann, I talked to you about what happened to your mommy this morning, do you remember?"

-The little girl nodded.

-"Your mommy got really hurt and she was in the hospital for a really long time and nobody knew about it, that's why you thought she left you, but she didn't. Your mommy would have never left you if she had anything to say in the matter. Mommy loves you too much."

-"So you won't let her leave again daddy?"

-Peyton found it totally insulting that her daughter would need Lucas' assurance about her staying but she knew that Lucas had been the one doing the parenting for the last year, it made sense that Anna relied on him, but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt anyway. She hated that Lucas' word meant more than hers, that her daughter didn't believe in her anymore.

-"I'm not leaving you again baby." She was going to make Anna trust her again, even if she had to say it until she got blue in the face.

-"Then where are you going?"

-"Oh, I'm just going to get some clothes, I'll be right back." She tried once again to move past Anna and through the door but her daughter still wouldn't move, her eyes boring holes into hers.

-"I'm going too."

-"Huh What?"

-"I want to go too." Anna repeated, this time with more assurance, crossing her little arms over her chest stubbornly.

-"Hum Anna, I…"

-"You don't want me to go?"

-"Of course I want you to come, it's just that…" She didn't know why she was hesitating, a few hours ago she would have been thrilled at Anna wanting to spend time with her, but now, after her fight with Lucas and the day she was having, she felt like right now might not have been the best time. She feared that she would loose her calm and ruin things with her daughter and she didn't know if she could live with that.

-Also, she hated that Anna wanted to go with her only because she feared that if she didn't, she wouldn't come back. She wished for Anna to trust her and she knew that it was going to take time but still, it didn't make things any easier.

-"Why don't you take Brooke as well, Peyt. You guys could have a girl's day."

-"Lucas, I don't need a babysitter." Her tone was glacial.

-"He knows that Peyt. Come on, it could be fun." Brooke jumped in, not wanting to have to see a repeat of before and certainly not in front of Anna. The way Peyton was glaring at Lucas now, she knew that it was only a question of time.

-"Anna are you sure you want to come with me?"

-"I don't want you not to come back."

-"I'm going to come back baby." Peyton tried once again to convince her daughter. She felt like she had repeated that statement a billion times already, but she knew her daughter, the girl could be as stubborn as she was.

-"I'm going. Is it okay daddy?" She turned to Lucas who nodded. He was still in the process of catching Peyton's eye, but she was avoiding his eyes. Her focus was all on Anna.

-"Sure Ann. Brooke, would you…"

-"I can take my daughter on my own ,thank you."

-"Peyton. It's not that… I just…" Before he could even finish his thought, Peyton jumped in again. She still wasn't looking at him and Lucas was amazed at the difference between how she talked to Anna and how she was with him. She was warm and loving to Anna and cold as ice to him. He had really messed up, he knew it before she even spoke that he had made things even worst.

-"Fine, let's go, I need some air." She stood up, glaring once more at Lucas.

-"Anna, go get your shoes please, I'll wait for you outside the door."

-Anna hesitated, looking between her room and the door.

-"I'll still be here, promise."

-"Pinkie swear?"

-Peyton smiled, that was something. They used to do it before this whole mess started. Maybe it was a sign that things could be fixed, that things could improved and that was a huge relief.

-"Pinkie swear." She agreed, bending down and linking her pinkie with her daughter.

-"Go on, I'll wait."

-"Yeah, I'll go with you kiddo." Brooke agreed, dodging the killer looks Peyton was sending her way and following Anna who had darted toward her room as fast as she could.

-Being left alone with Lucas was now at the top of the list of worst possible things that could happen to her and she really was going to give Brooke a earful about it later. What the hell was wrong with her anyway, hadn't she felt the awkwardness or was she doing this on purpose.

-"Peyton, look…"

-"I don't need your permission to spend time with my daughter Lucas, and I sure as hell doesn't need you to stick me with a babysitter."

-"Look I know, I was just…"

-Peyton saw Anna and Brooke coming back.

-"Forget it, I don't care." She said dejectedly, turning to look at her daughter.

-"Ready to go?"

-"Huh huh." The little girl nodded and without another look to Lucas or the apartment, Peyton opened the door and left, Anna following quickly behind her after a wave in Lucas' direction.

-Left was only Brooke who rolled her eyes at Lucas.

-"I see you really have a knack for this. You really fixed things there, I'm impressed."

-Lucas glared at her and Brooke laughed.

-"I'll see what I can do. See you later broody." And with that she left. Seeing how happy Peyton was with her tagging along, it wouldn't be a surprise if she just took off without her.


	16. Chapter 16

-Sure, Anna was with her and that was a huge improvement over avoiding her like the plague, but still, she couldn't be truely happy about it because Anna was not really with her because she wanted to. Anna only wanted to come along and spend time with her because she was scared that if she didn't, her mother was never going to come back.

-The fact that her daughter thought that she would leave her again at the first chance was not only heartbreaking it was also insulting. She loved Anna more than anything and she used to be convinced that her daughter knew that. Anna had never doubted her love for her before and it broke her heart to see her doubt it now.

-Sure, she understood that the situation must be incredibly confusing for a little girl but still she couldn't understand how Anna could think that she would voluntarily leave her, that she didn't love her enough to stay. Being angry at the situation she could understand, she felt it, she was furious that all of this had to happen to her, but for Anna to think that it was all her own doing, that she couldn't understand. She kept thinking that obviously she had done something wrong somewhere down the line, that somehow something she did led Anna to believe that she could readily abandon her. It was driving her crazy and breaking her heart at the same time.

-Anna was basically ignoring her once again, she was holding onto Brooke's hand while they walked and spoke solely to her. Brooke tried to include Peyton in the conversation but Anna wasn't dupe, she would shoot her a look and then speak only to Brooke once again. Brooke would shoot her an apologetic look but it's not like it made things any better.

-"Stop brooding Blondie, things will settle down." Brooke stated, linking arms with her best friend. She had missed her so much, she was thrilled that they could just get it back, start right back where they had left off. There really was nobody like her broody best friend.

-"I'm not brooding."

-"Sure you're not, you've barely said a word since we left the apartment."

-"That's because apparently I'm not that interesting." She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice and she really didn't want to. She was tired of pretending that she was fine when her whole world was falling apart.

-"Peyton!"

-"Don't Brooke. Okay?" She said shortly, massaging her temple. God she hated those headaches, she'd been having them for a few days now and she was sick of it. She was sick of a lot of things, but those headaches were the last things she wanted to have to deal with.

-Brooke looked down at the little girl and noticed that she wasn't listening to them. "Look Peyt. It will all be okay. We have a plan remember?"

-"I don't care about the plan anymore Brooke. It's clear that Lucas doesn't care about me that way anymore. All I want now is to get my old life back. I want my daughter that's all, it's the only thing that matters to me now."

-"You are way too pessimistic P. Sure, Lucas' got issues, he's been through a lot in the last year. It's not my place to tell, he'll tell you when he's ready, but it's been rough. What I can tell you though is that it wouldn't have been that hard for him if he didn't care about you. As for the whole getting your old life back thing, why shoot for that when you could try and get everything that you ever wanted. You have a chance here Peyton, please just take it."

-"There's nothing to take Brooke. Even if I did want Lucas back, it's not an option. He's pissed at me for something that happened years ago."

-"Yeah? I never got that story. Mind sharing?" She smirked as Peyton rolled her eyes.

-"It's none of your business Brooke."

-"Sure, be that way. Well it's not like Lucas could stay mad at you forever whatever it was about, he's Lucas. Where are we going, by the way?" She asked suddenly, looking around them.

-"To get my clothes. Apparently I have access to the storage unit, so we're going to get my things back."

-"Why don't you just buy new clothes, I mean the company must have given you money for the whole crash thing."

-"Yeah they did. Their layers came to me with a check like minutes after the doctors were sure about my identity. They were scared that I was going to sue them, figured that it'd be better to get at me while everything was still fuzzy, but it's not like I want that money anyway. Beside, I don't have bank accounts yet, so I'm pretty much carrying it into my purse until I figure out what to do with it."

-"So how much did they give you? Must be pretty big, physical and emotional suffering you know?"

-"Brooke…"

-"Oh come on."

-"15."

-"Only fifteen thousands, that's a joke. You really should sue them."

-"It's not 15 thousands Brooke." She admitted shyly. This money thing was making her uncomfortable. She was basically bought off so that she wouldn't sue them for almost killing her. That was way past weird.

-"No way! 15 millions. Are you kidding me?"

-"Brooke." Peyton chastised, looking around to make sure that nobody was looking in into the conversation.

-"You mean that you're carrying 'fifteen millions" in your purse? Are you insane?" She murmured the number but her incredulity didn't go unnoticed. Even Anna who hadn't really being listening, looked up at them at that, which earned Brooke a warning look from Peyton.

-"It's not like there's anything else that I can do with it. Now could you please let this go."

-"Have you told Lucas about this?"

-Peyton shot her a glacial look.

-"What? Don't look at me like that. It's just a question."

-"I have absolutely no reason to talk to Lucas about this Brooke."

-"Well maybe full disclosure, I don't know."

-"Full disclosure? Right! Because Lucas' all about full disclosure."

-"Peyton…."

-"Look. We're here. Come on." And with that Peyton put an end to the conversation as the two of them and Anna entered the building.

* * *

-Lucas hadn't moved much since the girls have left. He'd been pretty much sitting there thinking about how come he kept screwing things up. He knew he'd been an ass to Peyton before. He had absolutely no reason to come after her like that when she hadn't done anything wrong and he sure as hell hadn't meant to complicate things further by angering her over the whole Brooke going along with them thing but it's like he couldn't stop himself.

-It hadn't been his intention at all to infer that she couldn't take care of her own daughter, it's not like he had any rights to anyway. All he had intended was to make things more comfortable for the two of them. He had obviously screwed things up in the delivery of the message, but his intentions had been good. Not that it mattered anyway, Peyton was still pissed.

-So all and all, his life just kept on getting better. Peyton was back, alive and in his life once again. She was offering him to adopt her daughter, for them to do this together and yet he kept aggravating her, pissing her off when what he really should be doing was to do everything he could to never loose her again, to get what he had dreamt of getting back for years.

-He'd been sitting there thinking about all of this for all this time and all he had figured so far was that maybe he had a double personality disorder or something. That was the only reason that he could come up with as for why he kept screwing up when he knew how much he truly wanted her. One personality that wanted to hurt her while the other wanted nothing more than to never let her go again.

-He was torn from his very important reasoning by the sound of someone knocking on the door. He sighed and wondered if he could just ignore it when he heard someone speak.

-"Lucas, I know you're there. Answer the door." God it was his mom, what was he suppose to do now. He sighed once again and went to open the door.

-Not only was his mother there, but so were Haley and Nathan. It's not like he didn't want to see them, actually, it was exactly the way it was. He loved his family, he really did, but he really didn't want them here now. All it could do was make things even more complicated and that was definitely not something that he needed and neither did Peyton. She had made it pretty clear that she didn't want people to know and sure that hadn't really worked out but the next best thing would be not for her to have to face all of them on the same day.

-"You guys shouldn't be here."

-"Hello to you too Luke." It was Haley who smirked up at him and he rolled his eyes.

-"What are you guys doing here?" He said crsossing his arms over his chest.

-"Where's Peyton?"

-"She's not here."

-"I talked to Brooke, I know she's here. Luke, we need to see her, know that it's really true."

-"She's not here. She went out with Brooke and Anna. What about you come back next week or something."

-"Lucas!" His mom warned dangerously.

-"It's not a good idea okay. She's going through a lot right now and so is Anna and well I really don't think that what either of them needs right now is to be faced with all of you."

-"Lucas, it's not your decision to make. We missed her a lot, we're not going anywhere, now move." Karen moved passed him and was quickly followed by the others as Lucas once again sighed and went after them.


	17. Chapter 17

-"So, are you going to talk or are we going to sit here in silence?" Karen decided to jump into it seeing as they had been there for about 10 minutes and Lucas still hadn't said a word.

-"I'd rather not talk actually."

-"Lucas, honey, how are you doing with everything?" She wasn't going to just let him push her away, she was worried about her son. He hadn't been dealing with losing Peyton well so she was scared of how he was going to deal with this.

-"Fine."

-"Don't lie to me Luke."

-"I'm not, I'm perfectly fine with all of this." He had become so good at evading questions about his personal life and his state of mind that he didn't even loose a beat in answering his mother.

-"You don't look fine."

-"Mom, I don't want to talk about this."

-"Lucas…"

-"Just don't mom, I'm not in the mood."

-"What's wrong?"

-"Nothing's wrong."

-"Lucas…"

-"Fine, alright. I'm not fine, in fact, I'm the opposite of fine. What the hell do you expect mom? The love of my life who supposedly died a year ago and in doing so completely ruined any chance I had of ever being totally happy again, left me her daughter only so that a year later, when I'm starting to do a little better with it, to show up at my doorstep and once again shamble my whole world. Yeah mom, not fine definitely fits the situation."

-He had been so entranced by his anger at them for not understanding why he wanted to avoid talking about all of it that he hadn't heard the door opening or the girls walking in, that is until he saw everybody look away from him and toward the doorway. He followed their stare and visibly paled when his eyes met Peyton's troubled ones.

-The two of them continued staring at one another for a few seconds. Lucas was fighting hard with himself to try to think of something to say but he couldn't for the life of him say one word. That was probably best though since he would have probably screwed it up anyway. He hoped that Peyton would speak first but unfortunately she did no such thing.

-She massaged her temple, a pained expression appearing on her face as she brushed away some tears that had fallen from her eyes and then as she was about to speak, she noticed the other occupants of the room and took off.

-Brooke looked in the direction that Peyton took and then to Lucas before glaring at Haley.

-Lucas though, snapped out of it soon enough to see Anna taking off in the same direction. He went after her quickly.

-He found her sitting on the floor in front of the bathroom which was where Peyton apparently was, he could hear the shower running.

-"Hey Ann. Did you have a good time?"

-She nodded slowly but her expression was grim.

-"I don't want to talk daddy." She looked at him only briefly before fixing her attention once again on the door.

-He sighed. "Okay sweetie." He kissed her forehead and stood up, leaving her alone for the time being.

He walked back to the leaving room where he noticed for the first time the two big suitcases that he was sure hadn't been there before. Apparently, they had went and got some of her clothes, he realised.

-Actually, he had also walked in on a not so happy conversation between Brooke and Haley. Brooke didn't seen so happy that the other three had decided to come and visit and she was making that fact quite clear.

-"How is she?" She looked away from Haley, walking to Lucas.

-"Not speaking."

-"Anna or Peyton?" She was confused all of a sudden as to who they were talking about.

-"Well both actually. Peyton seems to be in the shower and Anna's guarding the door. You guys went to the storage unit?" He asked nodding toward the suitcases.

-"Yeah, Peyton wanted her stuff but then she got this massive headache so we figured we'd go back another day for the rest."

-"Oh!"

-Brooke was about to speak when Lucas heard Anna scream.

-"DAAADDDYYYYYYYY!" The sheer terror in her voice scared him more than anything ever had before and he took off running toward his daughter.

-Anna was banging on the bathroom door hysterically when he reached her.

-"Anna, Anna baby what's wrong?"

-His daughter stopped banging and turned to him with a terrified expression on his face.

-"Anna…" He crouched down in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders to try to calm her down. She didn't calm, but she spoke.

-"Mommy! Daddy something's wrong with mommy."

-"Nothing's wrong baby, she's just taking a shower."

-"No, no daddy. There was this big bang sound and then nothing. Something's wrong daddy."

-The panic in her voice is what convinced him. He banged on the door.

-"Peyton, Peyton answer me, Anna thinks that something's wrong. Peyton!"

-He waited a few seconds and when he didn't hear anything that's when he started to panic too.

-"PEYTON, PEYTON!!!!!!!!!"

-"Peyton I'm coming in." He warned before he tried to force the door open. The door didn't bulge and Lucas was about to try again when he saw the others looking up at him worryingly, Brooke in the forefront.

-"Luke, what's happening?" Brooke asked.

-"I don't know. Nate, help me out, I'm going in."

-Nathan nodded and came to stand beside Lucas as Brooke held a protective arm around Anna.

-"Okay, on three. ONE, TWO, THREE."

-This time the door didn't hold and Lucas walked into the room.

-"Pey… Peyton!!!!!!"

-He saw her collapsed form on the floor of the shower and his blood froze.

-"Mommyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

-It was his daughter's bloodcurdling scream that drove him into action, he sprang forward and tore the shower door open. He didn't even stop the water, he jumped in and kneeled beside her. There was blood, a lot of blood coming from a wound on her head and Lucas had to take a deep breath to keep control. He reached in and felt for her pulse, it was weak but there nonetheless and Lucas had never felt so relieved about anything in his entire life. The relief was short-lived though as he realized that she wasn't breathing.

-"Brooke, call an ambulance now. She's not breathing."

-Brooke remained frozen. "BROOKE, NOW!"

-That got her attention and she reached for her phone. Lucas couldn't really hear what she said though, it was like his own words were finally registering in his mind, Peyton wasn't breathing, she could died. He completely froze.

-"Mommy, mommy wake up." Anna screamed running toward them. She kneeled too and tried to shake her mother awake as tears poured from her eyes.

-He wasn't conscious of Nathan reaching in and grabbing Anna, or of him dragging her screaming body a few feet back. In fact, he wasn't conscious of anything until he saw the EMTs walk into the bathroom.

-They moved fast and he was only snapped of his stupor when they were standing beside them and one of them grasp his shoulder while the other attended to Peyton.

-"Sir, what happened here?"

-"Huh! She was in the shower, our daughter heard her fall and we forced the door. I found her like that."

-He watched as the other guy put an oxygen mask on Peyton and examined her wound.

-"Any medical conditions that we should know?"

-"Huh, I don't know." He couldn't think, everything was jumbled up he could barely focus enough to understand what the guy was saying.

-"She had multiple surgeries. She was in a plane crash." It was Brooke who jumped in and answered for him. Her voice cracked but other than that, she seemed to be doing a lot better with this than he was.

-"That's, that's her?" Apparently, everybody in the city now knew about Peyton.

-Lucas could only nod as the EMT repeated the information to his colleague.

-"Let's bring her in now, could be brain damage."

-He stood by and watched as they put Peyton in a stretcher and gave her an I.V. When they were ready, they started carrying her out and Lucas regained enough sense to speak.

-"I'm coming with her." He stated as he started jogging after them. They were almost at the door when he felt something tugging at his shirt. He looked down and visibly gulped when he saw Anna, she looked completely devastated.

-Anna didn't say anything but he knew what she wanted. He bent down and took her into his arms. Without another second the two of them followed the EMTs out the door and into the ambulance.

* * *

-He was pretty sure that the drive to the hospital hadn't taken more than a few minutes but for him it felt like hours. He was sitting on one side of the stretcher as the EMTs who were working on her were on the other. Anna was on his lap, she looked completely terrorized, her eyes never leaving her mother's face.

-Lucas was hugging her close to his body, trying to reassure her, but he really wasn't doing a very good job at it apparently. He figured that it probably had a lot to do with the fact that he was as terrified as she was.

-They had been formally instructed not to touch anything so all he could do was hold Anna and pray that things would turn up alright.

-He couldn't believe that it was all happening again, that once again Peyton was fighting for her life, that he could once again loose her before he could tell her just how much she meant to him, fix things. Life really wasn't fair.

-He was torn from his thoughts went the ambulance came to a stop and the door opened. He took Anna into his arms and followed after the EMTs as they got into the hospital and were met by a group of ER doctors.

-Lucas heard them tell the doctors some sort of statistics about Peyton but he couldn't make sense of them. He followed after them until they entered a room and he was told that he couldn't follow her in there and that he should go wait in the waiting room, that they were going to come find him as soon as they knew more.

-Sensing that there was no way around that he sighed and walked back to the waiting room.

-He sat in one of the empty chairs and sat Anna on his lap and they waited, hoping to God that things for once would turn out okay and that they would get Peyton back.


	18. Chapter 18

-He wasn't really sure how long they'd been sitting there, neither him or Anna had said a word, there was just nothing to say. He'd been basically sitting there staring into nothing when he saw a doctor approaching him.

-"Doctor, how is Peyton?" He stood up, Anna in his arms.

-"Are you immediate family?"

-"She's my wife." He had no idea where that had come from. He hadn't thought about it and he didn't want to question it, all that mattered was getting Peyton better.

-"We've got her stabilized for now."

-"So, she's going to be fine?" He saw the doctor avoid his eyes and he knew right away, something was wrong.

-"We need to run some more tests."

-"What? You don't know what's wrong with her?" He almost yelled, angry that they hadn't made her better already.

-"Mister Sawyer, we're doing everything we can. I'll let you know as soon as we know more." And with that, the doctor turned around and left Lucas standing there, a million questions still left unanswered. He was so concerned about Peyton's health that he didn't even notice the doctor calling him mister Sawyer, nothing was registering right now.

-He stood there looking at the door for a few minutes, somehow just hoping to see Peyton walk out of that door, not that he really thought there was a chance of this happening, but still he couldn't help himself. He really needed her to get better, he had no idea what he'd do if she didn't.

-Finally, he walked back to his seat and once again sat Anna on his lap.

-He knew that Anna wasn't doing so well and that he should try to do something about it but he had no idea what. What was he suppose to do or say? He wanted to make her feel better but truth is, he didn't think that he could. There was nothing that he could say that was going to help her now, not until she saw that her mother was going to be fine. Actually, neither of them was going to be fine until someone swore to them that Peyton was going to be perfectly fine.

-"Lucas! Lucas how is she?" He turned and saw Brooke walk into the waiting room followed closely by his mother, Haley and Nathan. She had obviously been crying, but knowing that, it barely registered with him, it was like he was in a bubble and that nothing could reach him.

-"Lucas!!!!!"

-"There're running tests." He didn't feel like answering at all but he figured that they deserved to know, well Brooke at least did.

-"They don't know what happened?" His mom was the one to ask as she sat beside him, his friends sitting around them.

-"No! He said he'd tell me when he knows more."

-"Anna, how are you doing sweetie?" His mom reached in to caress the little girl's face but Anna shielded away from it, burying her face in Lucas' neck and ignoring Karen and the others completely. Brooke at that looked at him and they shared a scared look. They both knew Anna would probably never be the same if she was to loose Peyton once again.

-It was another hour at least, he wouldn't be sure, before he learned more. He saw the doctor walk in the room and a sense of dread washed over him, this wasn't good and he knew it.

-Once again he stood up and with Anna and faced the doctor.

-"What's happening?" He asked nervously.

-The doctor pointed him toward a secluded area and Lucas followed him.

-"We're getting your wife into emergency surgery."

-"What? Emergency surgery?"

-"We noticed on the MRI that she's bleeding into her brain. We didn't think of it at first because your wife's been on medication to prevent that sort of complications since her brain surgery. We don't know how that happened yet but we still need to go in and fix the bleeding."

-"Brain Surgery?" He stuttered. His head was spinning, he probably was going to throw up. You didn't need to be a doctor to know that brain surgery wasn't good.

-"It's a fairly dangerous procedure sir but we don't have any other options here, if we don't fix the bleed she'll die."

-He couldn't speak, all he could do was nod.

-"It could be a few hours, I'll let you know once she's in recovery." And with that he was gone once again.

-He stood there frozen, the words 'brain surgery' ringing in his head over and over again. If he had been terrified before it was nothing compared to the way he was feeling now. He was pretty sure that there was nothing more terrifying than hearing a doctor tell you that the person you love needs brain surgery or they're going to die. Just thinking about it scared him to death.

-He finally got enough control over himself to move and looked down at Anna. She wasn't crying but she had this numb look on her face. The only thing that gave her away was her eyes. Her eyes showed the world how shaken she was by all of this. For the first time, he realised that maybe Anna shouldn't have heard about Peyton's condition from the doctor. Maybe he should have heard it on his own, leave Anna in the dark. Her world had been completely thrown off of its axis twice in the last two days. He thought that she deserved the truth but obviously she wasn't ready for it.

-He hugged her closer to his body and kissed the top of her head in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. He stood there holding her as close as he possibly could, his back resting on the wall when he realised that tears were rolling on his cheeks. He didn't have the energy to wipe then away or do anything else for that matter so he just stood there, hoping to God that he would just wake up from this horrible nightmare.

-Unfortunately, he didn't wake up, he was taken away from his stupor by a hand on his cheek and looked up to find his mother's eyes staring up at him worryingly.

-"Honey, what's wrong?"

-"They're taking her into surgery?" He wasn't looking at her but at a spot on the wall abover her head. He just didn't want to face anybody right now.

-"What happened?" She wrapped her arm around his waist and led him and Anna back to their seats.

-"She's bleeding into her brain." He finally managed to say once he was seating down.

-"What? Why?" All he could do was stare at Haley so she spoke again.

-"How did this happen Luke? Is it because of the fall or did the brain thing cause the fall?" Once again, all he could do was stare up at her dumbly.

-"What? Didn't you ask? Why did he talk to only you anyway?"

-"They can only tell personal information to immediate family." He was looking at the floor, decided to avoid looking at all of them.

-"That's Anna. They told you because you're her legal guardian?" Haley pressed on.

-He looked away sighing.

-"Actually, I told him she was my wife."

-"Oh"

-He didn't look at any of them just kept his eyes on the floor. He didn't care what they thought anyway, all he cared about right now was what happened in that operating room, nothing else mattered.

-The next few hours went terribly slowly. They tried to keep him talking, have normal conversations but his head wasn't into it and neither was Anna, she still hadn't said a word.

-"Lucas, Skills just called, he should be here with the kids in about an hour. We thought that we could crash at your apartment and come back in the morning." Haley spoke softly to him.

-"Fine."

-They looked between themselves and he had a feeling that there was something that he didn't know. He was proven right when his mom looked up at him.

-"Look Lucas, I know that you're worried about Peyton and I don't expect you to leave, but Anna's six, she's had a hard day and she's been here for over 6 hours. She should eat, sleep in her own bed. She needs it Luke. Come on let me take her with me, I'll bring her back as soon as Peyton's out of surgery I promise."

-He looked from his mom to Anna who was sleeping restlessly in his arms. His mom was right, who knew how long Peyton was still going to be in there, Anna should get all the rest that she could and she would sleep better in her own bed.

-"Alright." He stood up, but didn't hand her to his mom. Instead, he walked to stand in front of Brooke and she looked up at him, a silent conversation between them.

-Brooke stood up and Lucas transferred Anna into Brooke's open arms.

-"She knows Brooke more, it'll be best." He told his mom seeing her hurt expression.

-He then took out his keys and handed them out to Nathan who in turn handed them out to Haley. Lucas looked up at him questionably.

-"I'm going to stay if you don't mind."

-"Sure." He whispered, bending down to kiss Anna's forehead.

-"She's going to pull through baby, don't worry." He whispered into her ear not knowing if he was saying it for her or for himself but just hoping that it'll turn out to be true.


	19. Chapter 19

I am really sorry for the long wait. I got burried with school and work and quite frankly I had no idea where I wanted to take this story. Seeing as a whole bunch of you seemed to like the story I really couln't leave you guys hanging. If you have any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated. Now here's the new chapter, I hope you like it.

* * *

-Hours went by and Lucas became more and more nervous. Nathan had tried reassuring him, telling him that the surgery taking so long was a good thing, that it meant Peyton was still fighting. He tried to see things like his brother did but for him every single minute brought on a deeper sense of dread. He wanted to know and he wanted to know now. He couldn't handle the waiting, sitting there not knowing, for him that was torture.

-He was left alone with his thoughts and he couldn't bare it. His mind was plagued with images of Peyton, of Anna. He couldn't think of what he was going to do if that doctor walked back in here to tell him the news that he was terrified of hearing. Add to that the fact that he would have to tell the news to Anna. He couldn't even imagine how the little girl was going to react if the worst did happen.

-He'd seen her crawl back into her shell already. Anna hadn't said a single world to anybody since they had left the apartment and he was really worried about it. He knew that this was how Anna dealt with bad news, she hadn't said a word in weeks after the crash and he knew that if it was to happen again, it would be ten times worst, at least. The worst part though, was that he couldn't stop thinking about it, somehow, he didn't have a single positive thought left in his body.

-"Luke, talk to me man." Lucas looked up confused for a second before he turned to his brother.

-"There's nothing to talk about."

-"Come on Luke. I know that this must be hard." Nathan probbed.

-"Really, you know now?" He couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice.

-"Lucas, come on. Just talk to me."

-"You know, you guys keep acting like you know what I'm going through when you really don't. None of you have any idea what it's like to be me right now."

-"Then tell me Luke. Make me understand."

-"Look, not now." He really didn't want to talk about all that, not now, not when Peyton was fighting for her life.

-"Lucas, we're here. Talk to me, I'll listen."

-Lucas was silent for a long time and just as Nathan was starting to think that he was never going to talk.

-"I'm scared. Not just scared, I'm terrified. I'm terrified that I'm going to loose her again."

-"Peyton's a fighter Luke. She'll pull through."

-"And what if she doesn't Nate? I've been horrible to her the last two days, I've been so angry with her for leaving and I wanted her to know it and now… Now she could die, she could die thinking that I don't care and that would kill me."

-"Luke, Peyton knows that you care."

-"No she doesn't. She came back and I made her feel like I didn't even want her here when it's all I ever wanted. And Anna, what am I suppose to say to her. What am I suppose to tell Anna, Nate? She's already been through this once and I…I can't even imagine what it would be like for her."

-"Peyton will pull through Luke. You got to believe that. She'll pull through this and then you are going to have the chance to tell her all of this and Anna will have her mom again. You got to believe that Luke. You got to keep the faith."

-"Yeah, well it's hard when faith keeps kicking your ass." He mumbled angrily, wiping out tears from his eyes. Now wasn't the time to cry.

-Nathan could only nod. He had no idea what else he was suppose to say, what could he say. He just hoped that Peyton did pull through this because frankly, if she didn't neither Anna nor Lucas was ever going to be the same again.

-The two of them sat silently for another two hours until something brought Lucas' attention back to their situation once again.

-"Luke!" He looked up from the spot on the floor he had been fixing his attention upon to stare at his brother who took no notice of his tear-stricken face.

-"Look." Nathan pointed toward the hallway and Lucas' breath hitched. He turned to look and found a very sad looking Brooke carrying a crying blonde girl. Lucas jumped up hurriedly and him and Nathan ran to meet them.

-"Brooke!"

-At hearing Lucas speak, Anna almost jumped out of Brooke's arms and into his, burried her face in his neck and started to cry hysterically.

-Lucas hugged her close, murmuring reassuring words into her ear to try to calm her down and after a few minutes she was back to crying silently.

-"What happened?" He asked Brooke who was just pulling back from a hug Nathan had given her when she had started crying at Anna's outburst.

-"Not sure. We'd been at the apartment for a little while when she woke up and started screaming. I tried to calm her down but she wouldn't stop crying and wouldn't say a word and she kept trying to run for the door so I figured that she wanted to be here. She calmed down in the car on the ride over here."

-"Oh!" He kissed Anna's head and walked her back to his seat while Nathan and Broke followed closely and took seats beside him.

-"Ann, baby, you want to talk?" He asked caressing her hair and kissing her forehead. Anna shook her head into his chest and he sighed.

-"Any news?" Brooke asked looking around.

-"No nothing."

-"She'll be okay, she has to be. She just has to." She couldn't quite manage the confidence she was going for and Nathan took her hand and gave it a light squeeze.

-"I know."

-They spent another couple of hours waiting for news and the wait was excruciatingly long for Lucas. Anna had refused to eat or speak, at all. He had taken her to the bathroom once, but other than that, she'd been completely immobile in his arms.

-"Mr. Scott."

-Lucas looked up. He was faced with two suit wearing, business looking guys.

-"What can I do for you?"

-"We're representing Pacific Airway. We wanted to assure you that all the fees for miss Sawyer's hospitalisation will be covered by the company. You don't have to worry about anything."

-"You guys are going to pay for Peyton's hospitalisation?"

-"We already informed the billing department to send us the bill. All that's left for you to do is sign this form here and we'll be on our way."

-He trusted a legal document in Lucas' hands who looked at it blankly.

-"Wait, I don't understand. Why would you guys volunteer to cover the fees?"

-"Because they must be liable Lucas?"

-Lucas turned to Brooke with a shocked expression on his face.

-"I own a clothing line Luke, I deal with lawyers everyday. What I don't understand is why would the company be liable? You already gave her a settlement."

-"That is true, but the settlement did include a close stating that in case of future health problems related to the accident, all fees would be covered by the company. We're only following the terms of the settlement miss."

-"Without waiting to know whether the problem was caused by the crash first. It seems to me like you're a little too eager to get this thing settled."

-"Miss Sawyer is quite famous right now. The company wants to make sure that things are taken care of quietly."

-"So you don't want people to blame you for this right."

-"Brooke, let it go. I'll sign." Lucas jumbled his signature and initials on the papers repeatedly before handing them back to the lawyers.

-"Thank you mister Scott. Our thoughts are with you. We hope miss Sawyer makes a quick recovery."

-Lucas mumbled a thank you and the two men left.

-"Luke, why the hell did you sign it, what if…"

-"Look it doesn't matter okay. If they don't pay everything I will. As long as Peyton gets better…I don't care how much it costs."

-He sat there holding onto Anna for another good hour before he heard the distinctive sound of footsteps approaching, he looked up.

-He froze, the doctor was walking toward him once again. He tried with everything that he had to decipher whether or not he came with bad news but his face gave him nothing.

-"Your wife's surgery was a success."


	20. Chapter 20

-It was like this huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He had been waiting for hours and this was a possibility that he hadn't had the courage to hope for.

-"What happened?" Brooke asked emotionally.

-"We fixed the bleeding." The doctor answered curtly.

-"But what caused it? I mean what happened?" Brooke pressed on.

-"Building intracranial pressure, caused blood vessels in her brain to burst, caused a bleed. See, pressure builds in inside the brain. The brain is pretty much like a closed box you know. The pressure builds in but it has nowhere to go, this in turn can be catastrophic. You were lucky you found her so fast."

-"What caused the building pressure thingy?" Brooke continued. Lucas was rooted on his seat, unable to speak, he was very grateful for Brooke asking though.

-"It was one of the possible side effects of her previous brain surgeries. See, because of the shock on the brain resulting from the crash which caused the first bleeding, and the ensuing trauma of having people probing into her brain, it caused inflammation, this in turn can hide further problems."

-"We've received her file from San Fernando and she'd had numerous scans. Apparently, the building intracranial pressure hid under the inflammation and therefore remained undetected as it progressed. The breaking point could have been caused by stress or a number of other factors."

-"Wait, stress? You mean…huh…her and I had a fight yesterday. I caused it didn't I?" Lucas couldn't keep the complete horror out of his voice. He'd fought with her, he had said horrible things to her and put stress on her and…it was his fault.

-That realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He was the one responsible for her almost dying. He had no excuse. If only he'd…

-"Look, I know how it sounds, and I won't lie to you. The fight you two had, whatever the cause, probably was a factor in causing the bleed but it certainly wasn't the only one. Like I said, the pressure had been building, for a while it appears, without treatment, it would have caused problems sooner or later.

-Anyway, after everything that she has been through lately, it would be presumptuous to assume that there weren't any other stress factors in her life. What your wife went through, was she is and will still be living with in the future, having to adapt back to her life, it's enormously stressful on the body and stress puts enormous pressures on the body. My opinion is that it was probably just bad luck that the bleed occurred after you two fought. It could have happened anytime."

-Lucas heard the words but it was like they didn't register. All that he heard was that stress had made it worst and he had caused her stress. To him the math was simple, it was his fault.

-"So, you fixed it, she'll be okay?" Again, thank goodness for Brooke. Lucas looked up at the doctor expectantly, waiting for his answer.

-"We fixed the bleed, released some of the pressure. We also put her on medication to prevent further build-up. She crashed once during surgery but we were able to bring her back."

-"What do you mean crash?" Lucas asked urgently, a feeling of dread building inside him.

-"Her heart stopped beating, we were able to revive her though."

-The way he said it, like he was talking about the whether, it made him want to punch his light out. He reign in his anger though, the guys held the key to Peyton's health after all. He needed to control himself.

-"You still haven't answered me. She's going to be okay right?"

-"We won't know for sure until she wakes up. You have to understand that the brain is very complex. To this day we don't know everything there is to know about its functioning. What I mean is that we fixed the bleeding and we're doing all we can to get rid of all the extra pressure.But the trauma from the bleeding added to us poking into her brain. It's pretty likely that she'll experience some difficulties for a while."

-"What kind of difficulties?" Nathan asked. Lucas was too terrorized to speak right now.

-"Like a said, the brain is a very complex structure and it controls everything. The bleed, us playing around in there, it all causes inflammation and while Peyton recover from that stress on her brain, she's likely to experience a number of symptoms. Most probable are dizziness, problems with balance and diverse motor functions, because of the area wher the bleed occured. She'll recover, we're fairly certain of that, but it might take a few weeks, maybe a couple months. It depends how it goes.

-In the meantime, she'll need constant attention. She'll need your help and support and most importantly, she'll need a stable and calm environment while she recovers. You're not going to want to put too much stress on her system too soon."

-"So she'll be okay?" Lucas asked again, wanting to make sure that he hadn't been having some kind of auditory hallucination and had made it all up.

-"She'll be okay. We'll keep her here for treatment and further observation for a few days, question of reducing the swelling and make sure that her intracranial pressure stays within the norm, but as soon as she's stable enough, you'll be able to take her home. As long as you make sure to follow medical advice that is."

-Lucas nodded fervently. He would walk on his head if it meant helping Peyton get better. He felt so guilty right now, he would do anything to make up all the hurt he'd caused Peyton since she got back.

-"When can we see her?" Nathan asked, nodding toward the three of them and Anna who was staring wide-eyed at the doctor.

-"We've just taken her out of recovery and got her settled in into a room. She's still unconscious for the moment. She probably won't wake up for a number of hours. I can only allow family members until she's conscious again though."

-"Nathan's my brother, and Brooke's his wife. Would it be alright for us to go in now, we won't disturb her I promise."

-The doctor looked at him critically for a few seconds and Lucas was convinced that he saw right through the lie but finally, he nodded.

-"I guess that would be alright. No more people until she's awake and conscious and I've cleared it, okay?"

-He looked at Lucas expectantly and the other man nodded his ascent. He would do nothing to jeopardize this, he wanted to see her too badly.

-"Alright, follow me, I'll show you her room."

-He walked swiftly toward the elevator and the rest of them had to quicken the pace to follow him. He guided them to the third floor, the surgical unit, and showed them into a private room. He stopped right outside the door.

-"She's in there, I'll trust you not to hinder medical personal, I'll come by to check on her in the morning."

-"Thank you doctor." Lucas said, shaking his hand, and he meant it, he was extremely grateful for the doctor.

-The doctor nodded and walked away. Lucas was about to walk in when he felt a hand grab his forearm. He looked up into Brooke's eyes.

-"Luke, I wanted to say thank you, you know for saying what you did, allowing me to see her. It means a lot."

-"Thrilled to pretend to be my wife aren't' you Brooke?" Nathan smirked and Brooke rolled her eyes at him.

-"Sure, keep dreaming buddy. Personally I think that there's only Haley who's crazy enough to deal with you on a daily business."

-"Oh, that hurts Brooke. Really it does."

-Lucas smiled, it was nice to have some sense of normalcy, the last few hours had been so stressful. He knew that they weren't out of the woods yet, Peyton was still unconscious and the doctor had said that she would need time to recover, but to him, the news that she was alive, it brought him a sense of hope that he hadn't felt in a long time.

-He pushed the door and was about to walk in when he felt Anna squirm fervently into his arms. He sighed, frustrated, before he released her. As soon as her feet had touched the ground she backed away from the door, a terrified expression on her face.

-"Ann, angel, you heard the doctor, mommy will be okay. She's asleep right now but when she wakes up I'm sure she's going to want to see you." He was trying, really he was, but he was quickly growing exasperated. He didn't need that right now.

-Anna moved further back, her back was against thewall now and Lucas sighed and kneeled in front of her.

-"Anna, I know you're scared and I know that it was horrible seeing your mommy like that, but it's over now, she'll be okay, don't you want to see her."

-Anna shook her head, her eyes wide and Lucas was quickly loosing patience, he was at the end of his rope.

-"That's enough. Anna, you will walk into that room right this instant and sit with your mother, you hear me."

-He hadn't meant to speak to her like that, he'd never elevated his voice with her before and he instantly regretted it but enough was enough. Peyton was going to wake up and when she did she was going to want to see Anna. There's no way he was going to be the one to cause her further pain by refusing her that. He'd drag Anna in there if he had to.

-"Luke, calm down okay, she's scared, she's upset, just give her time."

-"And how much time exactly Brooke? Do you have any idea how much pain and stress it must have caused Peyton to have her daughter treat her like that, to have me treat her like that? I'm not putting her through that again, and Anna, Anna she's old enough to understand that right now Peyton needs her, she needs all of us." Lucas whispered angrily back at Brooke while Nathan was still trying unsuccessfully to get Anna to walk into the room.

-"I know okay, but Anna…just explain it to her Luke. She might be old enough to understand that Peyton will want to see her but she's still been through hell. If I know one thing about the kid it's that she's basically a mini-Peyton, and you know it too. You won't get her in there by using force. Look, listen to me, I know that right now you're ready to explode and that there are probably too many emotions swirling around in your head for you to think clearly, but just…take a deep breath and talk to her."

-Lucas nodded, she was right. He needed to calm down and talk to Anna calmly. He took a deep breath and walked back to her.

-"Ann, I'm sorry I yelled, I didn't mean to. It's just…Look baby, I know that walking in there and seeing her will be hard…it will probably be even harder when she wakes up. I know that you're scared, and I know that you feel guilty. Do you know how I know that? I know that because I feel it too.

You and I, we were angry and we weren't nice to mommy and we almost lost her again before we even had the chance to tell her how happy we were that she was back. I know that right now you wished that you could hide, not have to face her…I wish so too.

-But you know what else I know?"

-Anna shook her head and Lucas released a breath, at least she was listening, that was something.

-"I know that there are times when you need to do things that you don't want to, things that are very scary. And you need to do them because they're important. I know that walking in there and seeing mommy hurt and sleeping in that bed will be hard, but you need to do it. You need to do it for mommy. When she wakes up, mommy will need you more than anything. Do you think that you can do that? Even though it's very scary? For mommy?"

-Anna stayed silent for a very long time and Lucas was terrified that she was going to say no. What the hell was he going to do then. Finally, after what seemed like forever to him, she nodded. Lucas released a very relieved breath.

-"Thank you baby." He kissed her forehead and extended his hand to her. She took it, a determined expression on his face and Lucas smiled. He had never been so proud of her.

-He gave her hand a light squeeze and the two of them forged through. They walked into the room, Brooke and Nathan only a step behind them.


	21. Chapter 21

-It's been over ten hours since they had walked into that room and not much had happened. At first, he'd almost passed out when he'd seen her. That bandage around her head, the beeping of the machines she was hooked up to, the tubes of medicine entering her veins, it was all making him sick.

-Anna hadn't looked that much better. For a few seconds he had been certain that she'd run out. The expression on her face, she had looked totally horrified, but then he had seen her close her eyes, really hard. Her whole face was totally rigid for a few seconds and then she opened her eyes and let Lucas guide her to a chair near her mother. She had maintained a death grip on his hand ever since but at least she was there.

-Nathan had called Haley and the others to inform them of the situation. He told them that he'd call when they could come visit. Since then, none of them had moved much.

-Anna was now sleeping fitfully on the couch and the three of them were sitting there in silence. Suddenly, Lucas felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked back. Anna was standing there looking at him.

-"Anything you want Ann?"

-She didn't say anything, just pointed toward the door, and Lucas understood.

-"You want to got to the bathroom?"

-The little girl nodded.

-"Alright, I'll take you."

-"Huh Luke, why don't I take her. I have to go and call Haley anyway, they probably want some news. Anna and I could also stop by the cafeteria and get some food while we're out. What do you say angel?" He turned to the little girl who nodded.

-"Alright then."

-Nathan grabbed her hand and the two of them left the room.

-"It freaks the hell out of me, the not talking thing I mean." Brooke spoke, sometime later.

-"Yeah. She was like that for three weeks when…after the crash." He had meant to say 'when Peyton died' when it had all came back to his mind, she wasn't dead.

-"How'd you deal with it? I just…It's like I can't think of anything to say to her and it's killing me. That totally awesome little girl…she shouldn't be hurting like that Luke."

-"I know, believe me I know. I hated it then, having to watch her suffer and not being able to do anything about it, I still hate it. I just…I keep trying to get her to open up, maybe it'll work eventually."

-"So, would that tactic work with you?"

-Lucas' head shot up and he looked up at her.

-"What are you thinking about Luke?"

-He hesitated, and she thought that he was going to brush her off, just like he'd been doing with everybody since the crash, but at the last second his face relaxed.

-He reached out and took a hold of Peyton's hand. It was warm and that gave him a huge sense of comfort.

-"I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to say to her, when she wakes up I mean."

-"Luke, just you being here, it would probably be plenty for now."

-"No, no it's not, not really. You know, I hate how cliché this is."

-"What's cliché?"

-"The whole 'someone you love almost dies and it makes you realize that you're an idiot and should have treated her better thing'. I always thought that I was better than that, that I was the kind of man who realised his mistakes and owned up to them, but hey, here I am."

-"Luke, it doesn't really matter how you realised it, only that you did."

-"I know, but you know what the worst thing is? All the things that I told her, you know, about the break up, I never really meant them."

-"She thought you did."

-"Yeah, I know."

-"Luke, if you want to talk about it?"

-Of course she was going to ask. All of them had wondered about what had happened between the two of them and Lucas had always refused to talk about it. Sure, it wasn't anything about his present state of mind, but if she could get something out of him, she'll consider herself lucky.

-"You know, I was going to ask her to marry me. " He took a deep breath and then continued.

-"I remember, after she came back from the internship, I was considering moving to New York to work on my book and she all but packed for me. It was never really a question, her coming with me or not, she was so excited about it. I'd work on my book and she'd work on her art. For over a year, it was like living in a dream. One day I was walking back home and I stopped in front of a jewellery. It's weird, I'd passed in front of it about a million times before, and I never even gave it a second glance, that day, I couldn't look away.

-I walked in and there was this ring, it made me think of Peyton instantly. Before I even realised what was happening I was walking out of the store with the ring. I'd never really thought about proposing before that time. It was weird, things were going incredibly well, I'd never been happier and yet it hadn't ever really crossed my mind. Sure I thought about the future, I mean I thought about getting married and having a family but not about the specifics you know.

-But from the moment I bought that ring, suddenly, it was all I could think about, and I started to plan it, I wanted it to be perfect. Then that letter came for Peyton one day. It was an offer for this great music program in L.A., with internships included and everything. The moment Peyton told me about it, I knew that she couldn't miss that opportunity. They only took twelve students a year and they were offering her a position. She had to go, we both knew it."

-"So you didn't propose?"

-"I knew…I knew that if I asked, that she was going to say yes. I knew it in my heart that she would have said yes. We would have gotten engaged and she would have stayed. She would have stayed in New York and we would have been happy, I know that. But I would have always asked myself if I had done the right thing, if keeping her with me had been the right thing for her, and not just for me.

-That program was her dream, and I loved her too much to keep her from realising it, no matter how much I was going to miss her. It was awful of me to accuse her, to blame her for leaving when there was a number of things I could have done to stop her. She wouldn't have left without my blessing. I could have done so manythings to keep her here, proposing being only one of them. I chose to let her go because it was what was best for her, I have no right to blame her for that."

-"So you guys broke up?"

-"No, not right away. We'd done the long-distance thing before, we knew we could make it work. During her internship, we found the way to see each other nearly every two weeks, we spoke every day, it went great. We figured we could get through the next three years easily enough."

-"What went wrong then?" She hadn't gotten that much information from Lucas in years. She'd be damned if she didn't get as much as she could.

-"I found a publishing house ready to publish my book, Peyton got really busy with school and internships in L.A. We knew that a long distance relationship required work and after a while I guess that we just stopped working at it.

-Neither one of us wanted to take time off to visit the other, we started talking less and less. You can love someone more than anything in the world, if you don't talk, things go downhill pretty fast. After a while, we both realised that we had nothing to say to each other anymore, ending it seemed like the only thing left to do."

-"So that was it, just like that?"

-"Yeah, over the phone one night. I don't even know who did it actually. I think that we both just came to that realization at the same time and then it was over.

-I remember, it didn't hit me until I laid down the phone. Suddenly it struck me, I had lost Peyton. At that moment, it was like I lost my purpose. It was weird, we hadn't really been together for months and yet it was in that moment that it really hit me. Peyton was what gave my life meaning, she was my motivation, the reason why I did pretty much anything. Even three time zones away from each other, just knowing that she was there, that she believed in me, it made me want to do as great as I could.

-And then, it wasn't there anymore, and even the knowledge that she was still out there somewhere, it wasn't enough to rid me of this feeling of purposelessness that I had."

-"Luke…"

-"It's ironic I think, Peyton and I, we spent most of our lives sacrificing our happiness for each other, and in the end, this habit that we had to always put the other ahead of us, it's what caused our downfall. She refused to let me let go of my dream to be with her, and I refused to let her give up hers for me. Ultimately, we pushed each other toward our dreams and it caused us to lose each other. Maybe if one of us had been more selfish, maybe we would have lived happily ever after."

-"Lucas, it's not too late, you can still fix it."

-"So much happened since then. I got lost after the break up. I had a book getting out that I couldn't bare to look at, and I couldn't for the life of me write another one for the longest time. I told everybody that I was focusing on the press for my first book and that that was the reason why I wasn't working on the second one. The truth is, I wasn't writing because I had nothing. It was like losing Peyton made me loose all inspiration, I just couldn't write anymore.

-I got stuck in this sort of limbo. I convinced myself that I was happy, that things were exactly the way I wanted them to be. I guess that I was just too weak to admit the truth to myself.

-Fixing things with Peyton, it involves digging up so many emotions, painful ones, and I'm terrified that I'm not strong enough to do it."

-"You are Lucas. You and P. Sawyer, you're the strongest people I know. You two can do anything. I'm not saying that it'll be easy, you've been pushing things back, refusing to deal, for so long, it'll be hard, but hey, at some point you have got to make a choice, you fight or you hide."

-"What if I fight, what if I dig all those feelings back and she doesn't want me? What am I going to do then?"

-There was this fear, this terrified, wounded expression on his face and it tore at her heart. She really hoped they worked it out, these two deserved to be happy, more than almost anyone else she knew.

-"Luke, do you love her?"

-He didn't even hesitate.

-"Always has."

-"Then you'll be fine. Be honest and let her in, and for God's sake, be selfish and don't let her get away this time. This back and forth between you two is killing me."

-"You? It's killing _you_ now?" He smirked.

-"Yeah, you're miserable, then she's miserable and I'm friend with the two of you so I'm miserable and that's bad for my skin."

-"And of course we can't have that." He smiled and Brooke laughed, it was great to laughed, it released all the tension they had accumulated these past few hours.

-"You know what sucks?" Brooke asked a few seconds later.

-"What now?"

-"I'd designed this great plan for Peyton to get your attention. It involved a lot of walking around in towels and stuff. Now, I'm never going to get to see it in action."

-"Wait? What? Why?"

-"Peyton pointed out that you wouldn't look at her so I suggested a few ways that she could get your attention. I have to admit, the towel was one of my favourites."

-"You wanted Peyton to walk in front of me in a towel? Are you insane?" He laughed, shooting a look at the sleeping blonde.

-"She didn't like the idea much."

-"That's good. It probably would have killed me. I have a heart condition you know."

-"So the not looking at her thing, not an attraction problem?"

-"Brooke, I hadn't seen Peyton in over seven years, I thought she was dead, believe me, thereare times when I want nothing more than to hold onto her and never let go. Hell, there has been moments whenI had to stop myself from basically jumping her." He blushed at the admission.

-"Hum, well that's an interesting side of you, I'm sure that Peyton will appreciate."

-"Brooke." His face is heating up as he warns her.

-"I'm just kidding, I'm sure she already knows." She has a knowing look on her face that kind of scares him.

-"Well on that note, I'll go see where Anna and Nathan are, they've been gone awhile. Just call me if there's any change okay?"

-"You know it Scott." Brooke smiled, and Lucas got up. He put a hand on her shoulder.

-"You're a good friend Brooke. Thanks."

-"You're welcome." She smiled and he smiled back before quietly leaving the room.

-Brooke waited a few seconds. When she was certain that Lucas was gone, she spoke.

-"You were never good at faking sleep. Welcome back P. Sawyer."


	22. Chapter 22

-Peyton opened her eyes difficultly and after a little while, she met Brooke's excited ones.

-"Wa-ter." She croaked.

-Brooke sprang to action, she offered her best friend a glass of water and frowned when Peyton didn't grab it.

-"I…I can't."

-"Oh, here, sorry." She put the glass to her best friend's lips and Peyton swallowed the water difficulty. When she was done Brooke put the glass back on the table.

-"You scared the hell out of me P. Sawyer. You ever do that again, I'll skin you alive."

-"Sorry." Peyton said weakly. "What happened?"

-"Huh, the doctor probably should answer that, I didn't really get much. Surgery was a success apparently."

-"I had surgery?"

-"Huh yes, but maybe you should rest. You look a little pasty, I'll go get the doctor."

-"No…I'm fine."

-"Huh okay, but I can guarantee you that Lucas will go get him the second he sees you're awake. He's been going crazy with worry. You scared the shit out of all of us."

-"Sorry."

-"When did you wake up?"

-"Hum, not too long ago, I just…"

-"Decided to listen in on Lucas pouring his heart out? I get it, it is an exceptional event."

-Peyton smiled weakly.

-"He's…"

-"You heard all of it didn't you?"

-Peyton looked up at her guiltily.

-"I woke up when he took my hand. I was going to open my eyes but then…"

-"You heard the ever extraordinary Lucas-is-actually-opening-up-moment and didn't want to ruin it. I do understand."

-"Brooke, who are you…Peyton."

-Lucas had stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes riveted on the blonde beauty laying in the hospital bed. Their gaze met and held.

-"Peyton…"

-"Lucas."

-"Brooke." Brooke imitated in a husky voice and both of them turned to glare at the brunette who smirked and then simply smiled.

-The distraction that Brooke brought made her realise that there were other people in the room. Her eyes met Nathan's and then landed on Anna's scared and amazed one's, everybody held their breath.

-"Anna…"

-Lucas feared the worst, he was convinced that Anna was going to run out of the room but then she surprised him. She bolted in the other direction, toward the hospital bed, and her mother.

-Peyton looked even more surprised then the lot of them. She held her breath, waiting for what was going to happen next.

-They all stared in shock as Anna threw herself on the bed and wrapped her arms around her mother as tightly as she could.

-They all could tell that the shock and the weight of the little girl had hurt Peyton, she winced painfully, but then, as the realization of what was happening seemed to sink in, that expression was replaced by one of pure joy as the little girl cried, holding onto her like her life depended on it, and as he saw her cry, Lucas realised that it probably did.

-Peyton was trying to hold her back, with all she had she was trying to hug her daughter back, to give her some sense of comfort, but her arms refused to move.

-She was starting to feel woozy, but she didn't care. All that mattered right now was holding onto her daughter and never let go again. The sensation worsened though and when the door opened again, she was seconds away from seeing stars.

-"I got the doctor." Nathan announced, just as the doctor walked into the room.

-"Mrs Sawyer, how are you feeling?" He asked, walking in and toward the bed.

-Lucas reacted quickly, he walked to the bed and grabbed onto his crying daughter. He'd seen Peyton get paler and paler as the minutes went by, obviously this was hurting her.

-Anna fought him, she struggled with all her might against him.

-"Ann, Anna calm down baby, the doctor needs to look at mommy. He needs to make sure she's okay, you want that don't you?"

-Anna nodded tearfully, burying her face into his neck and Lucas held onto her tightly. His eyes were fixed on Peyton though.

-It was like seeing her for the first time over again, he couldn't look away. The pain and uncertainty in her eyes awoke something deep inside him, a burning desire to protect her, to make everything alright. It was a feeling that he hadn't felt in so long, he didn't know quite how to handle it. He was saved from further consideration by Peyton who finally answered the doctor's question.

-"I'm a little light-headed, and I…I can't move my arms."

-"Hum, well the dizziness is to be expected for a while, probably due to sensory overload and stress. Mobility problems are also expected while your brain heals."

-He looked at the monitor.

-"You're temperature's normal, but your blood pressure's a little high, I'll increase your morphine drip."

-"What…What happened doctor?"

-"High intracranial pressure, caused blood vessels in your brain to burst. You bled into your brain. You were lucky that your husband and daughter found you so fast. They probably saved your life."

-She looked up at him baffled for a few seconds, but then her eyes met Lucas' and she understood. Lucas had to lie so that he could be allowed in the room. She sent a grateful smile to Lucas and nodded to the doctor.

-"I know. I'm lucky. So, hum, will I get better?" There was an hesitation, a fear in her voice, Lucas hated it.

-"Well your O2 sat are pretty good. You're lucid. Any memory loss? Problems with speech comprehension?"

-"Huh no, I don't think so."

-"That's good. The dizziness is normal, you're also likely to experience problems with balance and mobility, it should get better pretty soon. In the meantime, I'll fill in your husband, make sure that he knows all that's needed to help you get better, and as long as you follow medical advice, rest a lot and limit stress, you should get better in no time."

-She released a breath and so did all the other occupants of the room.

-"Thank you doctor."

-He nodded.

-"Well I'll leave you to your family. Just press the emergency button if there's anything, I'll come back to check up on you in a few hours."

-And with that he was gone.

-For a second, they all stood in complete silence, none of them really knowing what to do. Anna was crying silently on Lucas' shoulder, and Peyton was staring at her daughter with a resigned expression on her face.

-"Do you need anything?" Lucas asked her softly, his eyes hesitant.

-"No…" she hesitated. "Maybe just some stuff for here, like a toothbrush and…"

-"Don't worry P. Sawyer, I'll take care of it. Why don't I take Anna and my fake husband so that you and yours can talk?" Brooke spoke spontaneously, a huge smile on her face.

-Lucas almost choked and then he blushed. After a quick look at Peyton he saw that so was she.

-"Do you want to go out with Brooke and uncle Nathan baby? You can take a bath, eat a little and then come back after?"

-He looked at the little girl in his arms. She had tears running down her cheeks and her eyes were botched and red. She looked up at him, then at Peyton, before going back to him. She nodded her head slowly.

-"Okay." Lucas agreed after a quick look at Peyton. They needed to talk, he knew that, Brooke apparently knew that too, and so did Peyton. She gave him a nervous nod and he looked back down at Anna.

-He went to put her down but she shook her head and extended her arms toward Brooke.

-"Okay kiddo, you want to play it lazy, I can do that. Come on." Brooke walked forward and took Anna into her arms.

-"You're pretty heavy kiddo. Hubby, you might have to carry me at some point." Brooke turned to Nathan who rolled his eyes at her.

-"I'm glad you're awake Peyton, I missed you."

-"I missed you too Nate." Peyton said quietly, her eyes weak and tired, but she was smiling.

-"We'll see you later P. Sawyer. Don't go and do something stupid while we're gone." Brooke joked. She bent down and kissed her friend's forehead.

-"I missed you so much baby." Peyton told her daughter.

-Anna didn't say anything, her eyes remained fixed on her mother for a few seconds though.

-"Let's go hubby, we haven't got all day." Brooke smirked at Nathan who clenched his teeth.

-"Fine, I'll see you later Peyt. I might kill your best friend first though." Nathan joked. He waved at Lucas and followed Brooke and Anna out the door.

-"I know I probably missed a lot, but why does she calls him hubby?" Peyton asked Lucas, her eyes still on the door, looking perplexed.

-Lucas chuckled.

-"The doctor would only allow family to sit with you so I told him that Brooke and Nathan were married. Brooke's been having a blast with it."

-Peyton turned back to look at him.

-"I can see that." She smiled softly.

-"Peyton, about the whole married thing…"

-"It's okay, they wouldn't have told you anything otherwise. I get it." She gave him a small smile.

-"Yeah, I kind of panicked, the husband thing is the first thing that came out."

-"It's fine."

-Peyton paled considerably all of a sudden and that was saying something considering that she was already deathly pale.

-"Peyton, you okay? Do you need me to get a doctor or something?" He asked, panicking slightly.

-"No, it's fine. It's just the morphine, it always makes me feels nauseous. I guess it's a good thing that I haven't eaten, it would probably be all over me."

-"Oh." He hesitated briefly, the sight of her looking so frail and sickly making him shudder.

-"I hate it, that it all happened to you. I'm sorry Peyt." Their eyes met once again. He was sincere, he truly hated seeing her in pain, more than he could handle in fact.

-"Yeah, me too." She nodded slowly, a look of understanding in her weak eyes.

-Lucas took a deep breath, that look in her eyes urging him on. He needed to make things right with her, it was time.

-"I'm also sorry about the things I said to you. I should have never told you those things about the break-up. It wasn't…"

-"Luke, it's okay. You don't need to explain. I…I heard you, what you said to Brooke, I was awake."

-Lucas looked down at her in complete shock.

-"I'm sorry, I know I should have said something but you were speaking and…I'm sorry Lucas." She looked away from him and at the window that was to her right before meeting his eyes again.

-"Oh! So you heard, I mean…did you hear all of it?" It was like his world was spinning, when he had spoken, it had never really crossed his mind that she would hear him. He had no idea how he was suppose to feel about it, but, as he saw Peyton nod nervously, he realised that maybe it was better this way. He had been brutally honest, something he hadn't done in years, and if someone deserved that honesty, it was Peyton.

-"I'm sorry Luke. I woke up when you took my hand and I heard you speaking and…"

-"It's alright, I probably wouldn't have been able to say it half as well to your face anyway. I meant it though, I had no right to say those things to you. You're already going through so much, I shouldn't have added to it. I'm really sorry."

-"It's okay. I'm sorry too. I've been having a hard time with everything, and I guess that I took out all my angst and frustration over the situation on you. That wasn't fair, it's not your fault that I'm feeling a little lost right now."

-"No, you really don't have anything to apologize for. This whole thing is my fault anyway. You need a calm and stress-free environment and all I did was put even more stress on you."

-Peyton, as she looked at him then, realised instantly what he was thinking.

-"Lucas, what happened to me, it wasn't your fault."

-He wouldn't look at her. His eyes were fixated on his shoes and he was shuffling his feet as he spoke again.

-"The doctor said that it played a role. He said that stress made it worst."

-"Yeah, and there's a whole bunch of stressful things in my life right now Lucas. Us fighting, it's not the reason why I collapsed."

-"Maybe, but I didn't help much."

-She smiled up at him softly when he finally looked up at her.

-"It's okay Lucas."

-She yawned and Lucas realised that further conversation, as needed as it was, could wait. Peyton needed rest right now.

-"I know that there are other things that we need to talk about, but for now, you get better okay, the rest can wait."

-He grasped her shoulder lightly, hoping that she would be comforted by the gesture. She sighed softly nodding, and he guessed that she was.

-She went to say something but caught herself at the last second. Lucas had caught on though.

-"What is it?"

-"Huh nothing, it's nothing."

-"Peyt…talk to me."

-She hesitated a second.

-"Will you stay with me?" She asked him quietly. Now it was her turn not to meet his eyes. Lucas realised that it was taking a lot from her to ask him that. He smiled down at her.

-"They'd have to drag me out. Sleep, I'll still be here when you wake up, promise."

-She smiled weakly and closed her eyes as Lucas sat back on the chair he'd been occupying for the last few hours. As she fell asleep, Peyton mumbled something.

-"I missed you Luke." And just like that she was asleep. Lucas watched her intently for a few more seconds.

-"I missed you too."


	23. Chapter 23

-"Brooke, you're going way overboard with this. Peyton just had brain surgery, she doesn't need designer shoes. She's in a hospital bed for God's sake." Nathan huffed exasperingly as him, Brooke and Anna walked into Lucas' apartment. Brooke had gone crazy with the shopping, buying Peyton all sorts of things that he really doubted Peyton would ever use, much less right now. Not that his opinion mattered much though.

-"They're for motivation hubby. So that she can look super hot when she gets out of the hospital."

-"Yeah, cos that's so important." Nathan muttered, closing the door of Lucas' apartment behind them.

-Brooke was holding Anna's hand while he was carrying about a gazillion bags of what Broke considered Peyton absolutely needed.

-"Nathan, Brooke, what are you guys doing here?" Karen appeared in the lobby with in tow, Haley and Skills and the two kids.

-"Peyton's awake." Brooke declared happily to the group. She then bent down to Anna's height.

-"Alright kiddo, what about you go and look for things that your mom might want while we talk. Then I'll run you a bath and we'll go back to the hospital."

-Anna nodded and then ran toward her bedroom, her two cousins following quickly after her.

-"She seems better." Karen commented, watching the little girl go.

-"Sure. She's still not talking but I think that Peyton waking up helped her a lot. She seems lighter, more normal." Brooke declared, a relieved expression on her face. The last day had been pretty horrible for her, yet, she couldn't even imagine how bad it must have been for Anna.

-"So, how is she, Peyton I mean?" Haley asked, as they all sat down in Lucas' living room.

-"Pretty weak, and she can't move much but the doctor says that she should get back to normal pretty soon."

-"Yeah, doctor wants to keep her a week or two so that they can make sure that she gets better but he seemed confidant." Nathan continued, streching to relieve his aching muscle. He was no longer in shape to carry two tons of bags through New York and up the stairs to Lucas' apartment. He was exhausted, and of course, Brooke had had better things to do than help him out with any of it.

-"So, can we go see her?"

-Nathan and Brooke shared a worried look.

-"What?"

-"Look, the doctor authorized visits and everything but…"

-"But?" Both Haley and Karen were glaring at him now and he hesitated before continuing.

-"He was insistent that while she recovers, she needs to limit stress as much as possible."

-"And what? You think that we'll stress her?" Haley asked, staring accusingly at her husband.

-"No. Look, it's not that. It's just, if you come, don't press her about the crash or what happened after or anything that would put stress on her okay. That could slow down her recovery or make her worst."

-"We can be careful Nathan."

-"Oh, and if the doctor asks Hales, Nathan's my hubby." Brooke broke in, as always, decided to make things as awkward as possible for him.

-"What?"

-"Complicated. Don't ask." Nathan answered quickly, seriously not wanting to get into this at the moment.

-"Huh okay! So, if Peyton's awake, then what are you guys doing here?"

-"Oh! Well she needs some stuff. Nathan and I volunteered." Once again Brooke had answered before he had the time to even think of an answer.

-"Actually, Brooke volunteered the both of us." Nathan quipped and Brooke shot him a look.

-"I was giving Lucas and Peyton the opportunity to talk. You know, before Lucas ate himself up with guilt. Beside, it involved shopping and who's better than me at that?"

-"She asked for a tooth brush, not shoes, or a Ipod or the thousands of clothes that you bought her. She's in a hospital p.j for god's sake."

-"Yeah, and no best friend of mine is going to wear those horrors. She also needed hair products and make-up and all kinds of stuff." Brooke explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world, the same way she had explained it the other twenty times he had pointed out that it was stupid.

-"See what I'm talking about." Nathan huffed.

-The group's attention was drawn away from Nathan and Brooke when Anna ran back into the room carrying a shoe box.

-"Hey kiddo, got everything?" Brooke asked, pulling the little girl onto her lap.

-Anna nodded.

-"Alright, let's get you clean up. You've gone way too long without a bath." Brooke frowned amusingly and Anna glared at her in response.

-"I'm kidding kiddo. Hubby, what about you do me a favour and download Lucas' music library onto the Ipod because Peyton thinks that I have no musical taste."

-"And she's right." Haley said under her breath. Brooke heard her though and turned to glare at her.

-"And what about I make you guys something to eat before we go to the hospital?" Karen proposed before Brooke could shoot something back at Haley and the other agreed, probably for the same reason. Brooke took Anna to the bathroom muttering about her apparent great musical taste while Nathan went in search of Lucas' computer.

-They walked into Peyton's hospital room two hours later to find Lucas sitting in a chair, his eyes riveted to the sleeping Peyton.

-"Hey." Karen said softly, drawing Lucas' attention as they walked into the room.

-"Hi! Hi baby." He said to Anna as he gathered the little girl into his arm and sat her on his lap. He spotted the little girl looking down worriedly at her sleeping mother.

-"She's just sleeping baby. She's really tired right now and she needs to rest to get better."

-Anna nodded timidly but still kept worried eyes on the form of her mother.

-"Did you guys talk?" Brooke asked, setting some of her bags on the floor while Nathan did the same.

-"Yeah. She fell asleep about an two and a half hours ago."

-"How is she?" Haley asked, taking a seat beside Nathan while Karen and Brooke went to the other side to sit beside Lucas and Anna.

-"Good, I think. She felt a little nauseous and she's exhausted but overall I think that she's good."

-He tried to sound confident, to hide how completely terrified he still was, he figured he was doing a decent enough job of it as nobody questioned him further.

-The truth was though, that as long as Peyton was laying in this bed, weak and hurt and with that huge bandage around her head, he wouldn't be able to do anything but worry. It was weird, Peyton had been back in his life for three days and he was just starting to fully realise how much he had truly missed her, how happy he was that she was back. He couldn't loose her, he just couldn't.

-Looking around he noticed that Brooke was now busy hanging around what seemed like decorations.

-"What the hell are you doing?" He whispered.

-"I'm decorating of course. What do you think I was doing?"

-"I meant why are you decorating?" He asked, looking up at the ceiling in exasperation.

-"To make this place more festive." Brooke answered in the same obvious tone she had used before and both Nathan and Haley rolled their eyes at her.

-"It's a hospital room Brooke."

-"Which is exactly why it needs to look more cheerful. It helps healing you know." She said just as enthusiastically as she kept hanging her decorations.

-"What helps healing?"

-They all turned to the hospital bed quickly and sure enough, Peyton was awake again.

-"P. Sawyer, you're awake. Do you like what I've done with your room?"

-Peyton seemed to notice what Brooke was talking about and looked around the room unconvincingly.

-"It's very…colourful."

-"How are you feeling Peyton?" Karen asked softly and Peyton slowly turned to face her.

-"Woozy and exhausted."

-Lucas winced at the answer. It was easy to see that even just waking up Peyton was still extremely weak. She kept closing her eyes, like somehow she was trying to get more strength in those few seconds that her eyes were closed. It was breaking his heart to see her so weak. Right now he would give anything for her to just smile and for it to reach all the way to her eyes.

-"Do you need us to get a doctor?" Haley asked worried, a similar expression on her face to the one Lucas assume he was sporting too.

-"No, it's fine. Brain surgery has a way of making you feel crabby."

-"Is there anything that we can do?"

-"No, you can talk between yourselves, I'll try to follow. I might fall asleep again though."

-Brooke jumped on the opportunity.

-"Alright, so I was walking down the road shopping before and you should have seen this guy, he had this weird haircut and…"

-Lucas blocked out Brooke's voice and focused his attention on Peyton. He smiled when he noticed Anna slowly extending her hand toward her mother and grasped her fingers. He met Peyton's eyes and she smiled softly up at him before her watering eyes focused on her and Anna's intertwined hands as Brooke kept talking in the background.

-The nurse came soon afterward. She gave Peyton a few injections and then brought on a dinner plate.

-"Alright, I'll help you out with that." The nurse proposed, seeing that Peyton couldn't grab the spoon from the tray.

-Seeing Peyton look embarrassedly around, Lucas spoke up.

-"I'll do it. What about you guys go to the cafeteria and get me something to eat in the meantime?" He asked the others as the nurse quickly nodded and left the room.

-His mom, after a quick look in Peyton's direction, got what he was going for.

-"Sure, come on guys."

-The others all got up quickly and left the room. The only one who seemed to hesitate was Brooke but after a look at Peyton she nodded and left as well. Lucas and Anna were now the only one in the room with Peyton.

-"Thanks." Peyton said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes.

-"No problem." He moved his and Anna's chair closer to the bed and grabbed the spoon.

-"Alright, what do you want to start with?" He pointed toward the plate.

-"I…I'm not really hungry." She was looking dubiously at the plate and really, Lucas could't blame her, It was hospital food afterward.

-"Oh come on Peyt., you need to eat. Sure, it's hospital food and it doesn't actually look really good but…"

-"Luke, are you sure that this is the argument that you want to make?" Peyton asked, smiling slightly.

-Lucas grinned down at her.

-"What I was going to say was that you can always start with the Jell-o. You can never go wrong with Jell-o."

-"Alright. Let's start with the Jell-O." She smiled again and Lucas' heart soared. Sure, the smile didn't quite reach her eyes, who still looked weak and tired, but her smiling at all, that was enough to make him feel completely warm inside.

-He knew that her and him still had a very long way to go, a lot of issues to air out and things to discuss, but while she was recovering, he could wait. The two of them talking, joking with each other, that was already a big step from the previous days and he was thankful for that. They were on the right path and maybe, if both of them worked at it, in a little while they would get it back. He truly hoped that they would he realised as he took the spoon and lifted it toward Peyton's mouth while Anna watched on.


	24. Chapter 24

-The next few days were remarkably similar as Peyton spent most of her time sleeping and Lucas sat by her side. Anna refused to leave for any large period of time either. She had yet to talk but Lucas wasn't pushing her. She was getting progressively more affectionate toward Peyton and that seemed to do wonders for Peyton's health.

-Haley, Nathan, Karen, James, Lily and Skills were staying at Brooke's and visited Peyton regularly. The subject topics discussed remained neutral though, just as Lucas wished.

-"Lucas, you should go home."

-He looked up from the book he'd been reading, his heart in his throat. Anna was spending the afternoon with Brooke so him and Peyton were alone and he was terrified that she was going to tell him that she didn't want him there.

-"What?" He asked, barely able to contain the hurt in his voice.

-"Oh no, I don't mean it like I don't want you here. It's just, since I've been here, you've barely left my side. I don't want you to miss out on your life for me."

-"I'm not missing out on anything Peyt." He said, a small smile on his lips. Truth was, he was having a great time hanging out with Peyton, helping her with her exercises and with anything that she needed help to do really. Sure he wasn't helping her wash or anything, that would be way too awkward and that's why there were nurses anyway but he was happy to help with anything else she needed.

-"Luke, I appreciate you saying that, really I do, but you're twenty seven years old, I'm sure that you've got better things to do then spend all your time here with me. That doesn't leave you any time for work or... dating you know." She added the last part barely above a whisper and without looking anywhere near him.

-Lucas chuckled softly.

-"Peyt., I don't date and I'm a writer, which means that I can do my job from pretty much anywhere and beside I'm waiting for inspiration at the moment. So, bottom line is, I don't have anything more important to do and nowhere else to be." He raised his eyebrow at her humorously and Peyton chuckled.

-"Great way to make a girl feel special Luke."

-"That's what I thought." He shot back, smiling. It was amazing how quickly they could fall back to the easy flirting that had characterized their relationship even before they started dating.

-"Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that you didn't feel forced to stay with me or anything." Peyton continued, looking up at him seriously.

-"Hey, I'm happy to be here with you Peyt., I wouldn't be spending time with you if I didn't want to. Trust me."

-"I do. I just…I didn't want you to be here out of some sense of necessity."

-"I'm not. Promise." He had no idea why she was so adamant on him not being there only becsue he felt he needed to, but if she needed him to reassure her, he'd repeat it till he got blue in the face. It was the truth anyway. He was happy to be there with her.

-Peyton nodded.

-"Well thanks, for staying, it means a lot." She paused for a few seconds., "You know, that was the hardest thing about the first time I woke up, after the crash. Waking up, not having any clues of who I was or what had happened to me. I felt so lost. Not having anybody there to lean on, a reassuring presence, that was really hard."

-"Oh Peyton."

-He had no idea what he was suppose to say now. Peyton had been really tight-lipped about her whole previous hospital experience. Her opening up and actually saying something about it was a surprise, but for her to share something so emotional, he had no idea how to respond to that.

-Finally, seeing her start to shed tears, it was what made him move. Quickly, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, sliding her forward so that her body was resting softly against his, her head on his shoulder and Peyton cried.

-He had no idea how long he stood there, his arms wrapped delicately around her so that he wouldn't hurt her and just bringing her all the comfort that he could provide. He didn't want to be selfish, but he had to admit, it felt really good. Having his arms around her, after so long and a whole year when he thought that he would never get to do it again, it was like being born again, finally being able to breath.

-It even brought tears to his eyes. The feeling of her breath on his neck, her smell enveloping him, it was a life-defining moment for him, for the feeling of her reminded him of how truly important she was to him, always had been really.

-Peyton calmed down eventually but didn't pull back from his embrace and he kept his arms around her. He simply didn't want to let go, wasn't ready yet and apparently Peyton wasn't either.

-Sometime later, Peyton pulled back her head and Lucas released her. He helped her sit back correctly on her bed.

-"Huh sorry about that." Peyton muttered embarrassingly.

-"Don't worry about it. If I'm honest here, and I decided that I needed to start doing that, I think that I probably needed it more than you did."

-Peyton smiled up at him.

-"Well, it was my pleasure then."

-Lucas laughed and the tension was gone.

-"Peyt., I don't want to pressure you or anything, but if you want to talk about it, what happened to you, I'm here you know."

-"Yeah I know. I don't know why it came out just then, I haven't ever really talked about it you know, how I felt, how I still feel sometime. They had me see a therapist you know, after I woke up, and I couldn't remember anything, but I just…"

-"You and shrinks, yeah, I can imagine."

-Peyton chuckled.

-"Yeah, well I'm not really ready to talk about all of it yet, but when I am, you'll be the first to know, promise."

-"Thank you."

-"You can talk to me too you know." Peyton mentioned, a little more hesitantly.

-"What do you mean?"

-"Well there were these moments before when I just…it felt like you were really hurting and Brooke she said some stuff about you …" She hesitated, unsure of how to bring it up. Luckily, Lucas did it for her.

-"You can say it Peyt., Brooke probably told you that I'm a wreck right?"

-"She didn't say it like that but yeah, kind of. She wouldn't tell me why though. There's also the others, every time they're here I get the feeling that they're expecting something to happen, like they're walking on eggshells and not only because of what happened to me."

-Lucas hesitated for a long time, he wasn't used to talking about his feelings, he hadn't in such a long time. On the other side, he was asking Peyton to open up, it wouldn't really be fair if he didn't open up to her in return. So finally, he stopped pacing and looked down at her.

-"I guess that we really are the same way since I'm not really ready to talk about all of it yet, but the gist of it is that I've had a really hard time dealing with finding out what happened to you, realizing that you were gone. In fact, if you asked pretty much anybody they would tell you that I haven't dealt with it at all, and they would be right."

-Admitting that, admitting it to her at that, it took a lot from him, but it was the truth and if he wanted him and Peyton to have any shot at getting close to each other again, he needed to be honest about his feelings and Peyton needed to feel comfortable enough to be able to do the same. So even though it was hard, he needed to start somewhere and he was happy that he had, even if it wasn't much.

-Peyton looked stunned for a few seconds, but then she met his eyes again.

-"I'm sorry. I can't really understand what it must have been like for you, but I'm still sorry. Sad how messed up we both are isn't it?"

-Lucas chuckled. That was all Peyton, completely relieving the pressure and tension that he put on himself with a sarcastic jab.

-"I really missed you Peyt." He told her, smiling and she smiled back.

-"Same here Luke, you have no idea."

-He reached out and grasped her hand and their eyes met.

-"Hey P. Sawyer, we're back. We went to…oh, huh obviously we interrupted something here, we can come back later." Brooke said, with a little too much enthusiasm Lucas thought, as she smirked at them and moved to take Anna out of the room.

-"It's not like we were making out Brooke, we were talking." Lucas told her, rolling his eyes at Peyton who laughed.

-"Well a girl can dream right."

-"Do you have any idea how disturbed that sounded?" Peyton jabbed, the corner of her mouth twitching as she realised that Lucas still hadn't let go of her hand.

-"Oh shut up P. Sawyer, I'm only trying to help. So, want to hear what me and the kid here did this afternoon?"

-"Hum, let me guess, shopping?"

-"You know kiddo, your daddy really is no fun." Brooke said looking down at Anna who smiled and walked to her parents. She looked up at Peyton and when her mother nodded she looked back to Lucas who smiled and hoisted the little girl up onto the bed.

-Anna then moved carefully and placed herself right beside her mother and Lucas and Peyton shared another smile. The little girl had taken to doing that. Nearly every time she walked into the room she went and sat on the bed with her mother and every time she did, Peyton looked like Christmas had come early.

-Anna hadn't been overly affectionate, she hadn't hugged or kissed Peyton but she was getting there. Everyday she got more comfortable and Lucas was confidant that it was only a question of time before she started to speak again but they weren't pushing her for he understood exactly how she felt. There were moments when even he had to remind himself that Peyton wasn't going anywhere anymore, that he wasn't going to loose her again. He could understand that a six year old would take time to adjust to something as big as that. Best part was, they had all the time in the world for all three of them to adjusts to things now.


	25. Chapter 25

-"Alright, I'm going to put you down." He said softly, trying not to think too much about the position they were in. Carefully, he lowered her onto his bed, making sure not to be too rough with her, afterall, she was just out of the hospital.

-"Thanks." She told him quietly, blushing and unable to look anywhere near him.

-It was almost laughable, all the tension that could appear between two persons in such a short lapse of time. They'd been friendly, talking about nothing and everything like they'd never been apart not more than two hours ago.

-Then she was released from the hospital.

-She was doing a lot better. She could now move her arms and the dizziness was almost all gone. According to her doctor, there were absolutely no reason why she couldn't go back home.

-Lucas had managed to come up with a few though, the most important of which being that he was absolutely terrified, and the big bandage that was still wrapped around her head didn't help any.

-He couldn't help but panic. What if he wasn't good enough to take care of her? What if he missed some of the signs of complications that the doctor had talked about and that she collapsed again? What if he messed up and worsened her conditions? These thoughts had been rummaging through his head ever since that morning when he was told that Peyton could finally be released from the hospital, ten days after she had collapsed in his apartment.

-Peyton had assured him that she was going to be fine. She must have sensed that he was completely panicking, not that it would have been too hard to realise, he was almost green with worry before they even stepped out of the hospital, Brooke and Anna in tow.

-It had been fine, well she hadn't collapsed or complained of headaches so as far as he was concerned it was fine, anyway, everything had been peachy right until the moment where they had walked into his building, his arm wrapped securely around her waist to make sure that she didn't fall, and he had noticed that the elevator still hadn't been fixed.

-He had cursed loudly at that realization. How long could they take to repair that thing anyway?

-It had seemed like a perfectly fine solution at the time. Peyton might have argued that she could walk up the stairs but there was no way he was risking that so there was pretty much only one thing left to do. He had bent down and taken her into his arms.

-THAT was when it had gotten awkward.

-He hadn't touched her, well except holding her hand from times to times or when he had helped her with her exercises, since she had been back. In fact, the last time he had been this close to her was when he had hugged her, and that had been nowhere near as awkward as it was now.

-Maybe it was that they were in a hospital, maybe it was that she was crying, or that she couldn't hug him back, he had no idea. What he did know was that the moment her arms had wrapped around his neck, unsurely at first and then more tightly as she realised what he was doing, it was like a cloud of sexual tension had wrapped itself around them.

-He hadn't seen it coming, for the life of him, he had been completely clueless about what it would be like to have her in his arms again, to feel her heart thumping through his chest, or to feel her rapid breaths on his neck.

-At that moment, he would bet anything that they both were thinking of exactly the same thing. The reference to the thousands of times he had carried her to bed that way simply couldn't be ignored and he had cursed the building managers in his mind once again.

-Really, he could ignore how much he wanted her, well most of the times. He had accepted that there were lots of things that needed to be said and fixed before they could go anywhere near there, but did the Gods really have to torture him like that?

-Him and Peyton had agreed to postpone any discussion about their relationship, what had happened before, if they wanted to try again, etc., until things had settled down with her health, with Anna.

-It was all going great, he was able to enjoy spending time with her and Anna who had finally unfroze and started talking again, to talk with her and not torture himself with how much more he wanted, with how much he had missed being with her, and then this had happened.

-He could tell that Peyton had felt it too. The way she had tensed and looked away quickly the moment that their eyes met, it had told him everything that he had needed to know. She had been just as uncomfortable as he had, and Brooke walking in with Anna and whistling at them hadn't helped any.

-Brooke was having way too much fun with this situation. Here he was, having to focus on not looking at Peyton at all as he climbed up the ten flights of stairs with her in his arms, closer than she had been in seven years and his mind clouded with images of the two of them together, and Brooke was smirking at the back of his head. That was not helping to distract him at all.

-Peyton hadn't been able to meet the brunette's eyes either. Really, her insinuations about them becoming a couple again were awkward enough when they were in a room together, but when he had her in his arms, well that was a whole lot worst.

-They had walked up the stairs in silence, well him and Peyton anyway. Brooke and Anna were talking to each other but he was barely able to focus on what they were saying, there was too much on his mind.

-When they had finally reached his floor, he had thought that the worst was over. Once again he had miscalculated. He had completely forgotten to take into account how much Brooke was enjoying torturing them.

-He had handed his keys to Brooke so that she could open the door for him and wasn't thinking about much more then putting Peyton down and taking a very cold shower when Brooke had pushed the door open and quipped.

-"Let the honeymoon begin."

-He had wanted to strangle her.

-He was pretty certain that he had never glared at someone as darkly as he had to Brooke after that comment. Peyton, who had just started to relax had completely tensed again and she had blushed profusely. He would bet anything that he had had the same reaction and Brooke had had the nerve to burst out laughing and bounce out of the room with Anna, leaving them alone with all this awkwardness and tension.

-Yup, strangle her, that was exactly was he was going to do.

-After that, he had awkwardly carried Peyton to his bedroom and placed her on the bed which was where they were now. Peyton was pretending to look around the room and Lucas was racking his brain for an excuse to get the hell out of there and go strangle Brooke. Really, like things hadn't been uncomfortable enough.

-"Okay, well, do you need anything else?" He asked her awkwardly, looking around the room just so he wouldn't have to meet her eyes.

-"No. Thanks. I'm fine." She told him in the same tone and he didn't have to look at her to see that she was still blushing.

-He huffed. Seriously, how old were they? Sixteen? Because truthfully, that was the last time there had been this much sexual tension between them.

-Peyton seemed to read his thoughts.

-"I'm sorry, about…you know." She met his eyes shyly before quickly looking away.

-"Not your fault…It's just…"

-"Us."

-"Yeah. Us." He confirmed, exhaling loudly afterward. "And Brooke isn't helping either." He added, smiling shyly at her.

-She laughed and their eyes met again.

-"Yeah, definitely not helping. You'd think she was enjoying herself."

-"That's because she is." He paused, smiling at her again. "Alright, you should rest. I'm going to call the super about the elevator and then I'm going to bring you stuff to occupy yourself and then I'll make lunch."

-"You know, I can walk now, I could get this stuff myself. I could even help you out with lunch"

-"No! Huh hun. Sorry but you're staying in this bed. The doctor said to rest and take it easy."

-"Yeah, which means not to go rock climbing or something. I'm perfectly capable to help you out around here." Peyton argued stubbornly and he rolled his eyes. Only Peyton would take 'taking things easy' to mean do whatever you want as long as its not life threatening.

-"Well I disagree and I'm the nurse around here until the doctor clears you. So bed. And rest." He ordered her sternly. The effect he was going for was a little ruined when she burst out laughing though.

-"What?" He cried, a little offended.

-"No, it's nothing. It's just…A nurse? Really?" She started laughing again, eyeing him dubiously and he couldn't help it, he burst out laughing too.

-"Alright. Maybe not a nurse then, but I'm still in charge."

-"No…no. I can totally see you in pink scrubs." She joked, making him blush as the image imprinted itself onto his brain.

-"That's not funny." He laughed, "and that's not going to work. Rest. Now."

-"What? What's not going to work?" She evaded, brushing the tears from her eyes.

-"The distraction technique to make me forget that you're suppose to be in bed. Anna does the same thing at least once a week and like I said, not going to work. You rest, I'll bring in your stuff when I bring you lunch later."

-"Fine." She huffed, pretending to be irritated with him, the smile on her face giving her away though. "But you're not going to be able to keep me in this bed forever Scott." She told him challengingly.

-"We'll see Sawyer." He shot back in the same tone, and their eyes locked on each other's. The previous sexual tension was now right back.

-Lucas tore his eyes away and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

-"I'm going to go." He said quickly, barely waiting for Peyton to nod before he practically ran out of the room. Yup, he was definitively in trouble.


End file.
